The Last Spartan
by Previously D. Socrates
Summary: When a new threat rises who do they turn to? When there's no time left the only option is to go back and start from the beginning to fight the rising tide. Re-write of 'A Trip Through Time' the whole ending should be different, as will the style of writing and overall quality. Enjoy, please review. M themes will be covered later. AU-ish. 10k chapters.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1 – ****The Plan**

A tall lean man looked around the room he'd come to find himself stuck in. This place? No, surely not. It didn't make sense that she would send him here, there was nothing of interest here.

Thalia was usually pretty good with her intel, but as the minutes passed by, he was sure that he wasn't in the right place. With a heavy sigh he perched on the arm of a large comfy looking wing-back chair and started to mindlessly play with his revolver.

Most people that knew him had always thought that it was strange that he'd left his home after a certain age and found a liking for guns. For years he'd been trained as a teenager to be proficient with all manner of arms, but seldom was there room for the likes of guns in the wars he fought. It was modelled like a typical old school revolver; six shot with an extended barrel, complete with a reinforced firing hammer forged in the fires of a hesitant God. A weapon of this calibre would not have been created had it been for anyone else, but this man in question was at the very least a good man, a defender of the people was a title quite befitting for one such as him.

He recounted his steps to figure out where exactly they had gone wrong, what was he doing here? Mission: to continue their hunt to find the monster that had abducted a very special girl, a huntress as he knew them to be. A girl that was capable of defending herself against all manner of creatures, which was why he had been called in to help, because whatever had taken the girl had to be powerful.

The journey? He'd been all over this part of the country trying to catch up to a trail rapidly growing cold, but they were finally onto something that Thalia had believed to be a real hot lead, but here he was, sat in a musky hotel room staring nonchalantly at his gun.

The end result? Boredom.

Until he felt an unnatural shift in the air. He could physically _FEEL_ the inhabitants that were on the same floor as him, but somewhere further down the long ugly wallpapered walls, someone was running their hand across it rhytmically, and slowly bit by bit he could hear soft fingertips change into sharp talons as the slow movement of flesh turned into the sound of razors splintering the wood of the walls as the creature continued to move towards his room.

He moved silently, clinging to the shadows as if cloaked by Nyx herself. He opened the door just a crack to see who or what the slow moving footsteps belonged to, and lo and behold it was definitely not a human, or at least it wasn't a human any-more.

It was a young woman with long blonde hair and pale skin which seemed to split at her forearms to reveal snakelike skin that revealed slender talons upon her finger tips. The thing that identified her the easiest was the fact that one of her legs was shining through the rips and tears of her jeans. The texture underneath seemed to gleam every so often when the light caught it. A metal leg, which meant that it was none other than an Empousa, which wasn't too difficult to deal with if there was just one, yet they rarely stalked a location alone, they were all too aware that their strength multiplied in numbers.

Thalia's voice sparked into existence in his earpiece from one of the other room's two floors above him. They had no escape plan, which they were starting to need more and more as time went on. With each passing moment he could feel a multitude of other people on this floor all change in the same was as the Empousa in the hallway. Great, so the hotel seemed to be a trap set for unknowing humans to walk into to become dinner for the creatures running the show.

"You still there?" Thalia asked through the tiny ear piece. He had of course gotten lost in thought once again. Silently closing the door once the monster had passed without conflict he went over to his window. The lights were all off but he could see their surroundings as clear as day.

"Yeah?" He responded, hoping that Thalia would repeat whatever it was that she had asked him. He casually pushed some of his long raven hair to the back of his head and scanned the strip of buildings outside. The night sky was a deep black with the moon beaming down with a healthy silver glow. Artemis and her hunters must have been fresh on the trail for the moon to have been glaring down so vibrantly.

Down in the streets below him he could almost smell the fresh scent of the foods being cooked so heartily. The hotel was on a strip that flowed with nightlife, clubs and restaurants, right over to buildings of a more adult nature. He shivered at the thought of a monster stripper, acting their case in order to earn dinner.

"You aren't listening to me are you?" He heard Thalia ask him calmly, but he also heard the forced breath from her side. He contemplated making up a lie, but he'd never get away with it. Thalia knew him too well. His older cousin let out a sigh at the silence.

"Nope. Ask again." He told her casually. He tore himself away from the window as he awaited to hear whatever it was that Thalia had wanted to either ask or say.

She was talking about their situation, it seemed that she too had realized that there were far more monsters in this hotel than either of them had initially thought. "I said that there's more monsters with each passing moment, this whole hotel is basically an abattoir." She told him in disgust.

"Yeah, that's actually a pretty good way to put it. So shall we put a pin in this particularly bloody balloon today? Or are you not feeling up to the challenge of fighting for your life in a hotel from Hades?" He asked with a grin, knowing full well that Thalia would never back down from the challenge, especially one from Perseus Jackson of all people. The legendary saviour of Olympus.

Thalia scoffed, "Of course I am, I can kill more monsters than you can. Don't think that you're better than me just because you've killed a Titan." She told him incredulously.

"A couple of Titans actually. Hey, Thalia, how many Titans have you defeated?" He asked her in the most neutral tone he could muster. He stood there with a huge grin plastered across his face as he listened to the silence he received.

"Fuck off." Thalia finally told him before the earpiece shut out back to silence.

So he was going to have to fight his way out, that was the preferred method of ex-filtration in his opinion, that way he didn't have to worry about looking over his shoulder because he KNEW that everyone and everything was trying to kill him.

His past experiences working in conjunction with the Hunters of Artemis had given him an edge with his already impressive reflexes while he'd been working to recover the lost huntress. After the multiple battles for Olympus he'd come to the realization that after years of fighting he'd seen too much in his time at Camp Half-Blood to go back, much to the disappointment of Annabeth who had opted to become an immortal councillor. That had put a splinter in their relationship.

A splinter the size of a tree.

Percy had of course refused Godhood once again but instead had come to a compromise and received the gift of immortality towards the currents of time, and moreover decided to become the only male to ever become a regular of Artemis' Hunt.

Percy Jackson was by no means a member of the Hunt, nor did he particularly want to be, but he found that now that he'd saved Olympus multiple times, he was running out of uses for himself in a world like theirs, but with the Hunt? His sole purpose was to aid and assist in the destruction of impressively powerful monsters, and occasionally special missions like the one they were on.

He did often find himself questioning whether he'd been born in the right time. Ancient Greece seemed like a nice place this time of year, or so he thought to himself.

"How many bullets have you got? And did you remember to bring Riptide?" Thalia asked him patiently. A number of times he'd been empty pocketed when he needed Anaklusmos the most. The pen was magically enchanted to return to his pocket at all times, but more than once he'd managed to lose it and be caught out unarmed. He subconsciously brushed his hand against the right back pocket of his tailor made suit trousers. The three piece suit was a gift from Aphrodite herself, and no woman was able to take their eyes of him when he wore it save for Artemis. The trousers were a smooth grey that clung to his well-muscled legs.

The trousers were only complimented further by the smooth-point black Italian shoes that had a certain shine to them like perfectly polished boots. He was particularly fond of his vest however as it revealed his prominent muscular arms that bulged underneath the tight white shirt that he constantly rolled the sleeves up on. Since the events of Kronos' attack on Olympus, he'd decided on a number of tattoos so that if he was ever killed in action, it would be easier to identify his body. The tattoos could be seen clearly from underneath the shirt, which only added to his image. The entire suit was topped off with a sea green and black tie that wasn't too thin, and yet didn't take up all of the space underneath. In short; it was the perfect suit. He never wore the jacket, it slowed him down too much or made him too hot whenever he had to actually run.

"Yes I have _Anaklusmos._" He replied instantly. He was calm, but he hated it when anyone called his sword Riptide. It had a long history that started out with Zoe Nightshade, and he knew that it deserved the proper respect of its true name, which admittedly was a reverse translation of 'Riptide' but the sword wasn't English or American, it was Greek, so the name would remain Greek.

"Good, I have a feeling these tight confined hallways are going to restrict your use with that hand cannon." Thalia responded after a moment. She knew too well that Percy would use his gun right down to the last bullet if he had to, before switching to a more space appropriate weapon. **He'd grown so very attached to his revolver that he'd preferred it over his prized sword when it came to combat.**

"How many bullets do you have left? It might be wise to save some for later." She quickly told him. There was a buzz of interference following her words, it made it sound like she was already on the move. He wondered exactly how he'd play things, the moment that he let his revolver shoot off, all of the monsters on this floor were bound to be on him in a heartbeat.

"That might be a good idea. I have eight speed barrels left and about thirteen loose rounds that I've clipped up. It's not a fast reload, but it'll do." He told her. He heard an audible sigh of relief, she was expecting him to have been much more trigger happy on their ride up to the hotel. She knew he only ever brought a certain amount of ammunition with him, despite how long or dangerous the trip could potentially be.

"OK, I count thirty eight arrows left. I've got my hunting knives but if we can avoid an all-out fight that might be good. I can't use any of my powers inside the hotel." Thalia told him. She sucked her lip at that last part. Only bad part about being a daughter of Zeus; indoors sucked for storms.

"Hmm. I suppose I could use my power but we'd probably have to make sure it's a last resort as it might end up with this building turning to rubble, and I'm pretty sure there's at least a few humans milling around." Percy chuckled slightly. He knew Thalia too well, she no doubt had a scowl on her face at his calmness for the situation they were in. The trace for the huntress had gone cold and they were now stuck in this hotel.

"I'd say that we could ask Blackjack but frankly I'm unsure whether he'd come to Dubai even for a million doughnuts." Percy dead-panned. He wasn't really going to call Blackjack, because he knew that Blackjack would definitely come, it was more that; once Blackjack arrived, he had to worry about Thalia's ironic fear of heights.

"It's fine. Try and get to my room and I'll Iris Artemis to ask for her progress, maybe they've already found the girl and we can ask Nico to get us out of here or something." Thalia sounded unconvinced, she knew as well as Percy did that they were going to have to fight to escape this wretched hotel. Percy grunted and did a quick check. Back pocket, Anaklusmos was present. He checked his gun out, it truly was the most beautiful weapon he'd ever seen.

"The Judge." Percy whispered to himself. "You beauty." He cracked a wide smile. Not even the thickest of Titan armour could withstand a shot from his incredible weapon. A custom made Hephaestus revolver. The body of the gun was obsidian black with silver waves designed on the entire length of the barrel and grip. There was a pure black muzzle break on the end of the gun designed to cause even more damage. The barrel casing was a sea green so dark that it was almost black itself. In short, if you were a monster and you saw this, it would be the last thing you did see. The gun from tip to tip was the length of Percy's forearm and perfectly balanced for weight. The kickback in the hands of a human would probably break their arms, but in Percy's grip was no more than that of a regular revolver, but with rounds the size of his thumb, the gun could really kill.

The rounds themselves were a mixture of celestial bronze and Olympian gold, the two of which created an even stronger alloy that was tinted black for consistency, and those were just Percy's regular rounds. Hephaestus made him some very special bullets but very few at a time. The same size as the others, these completely silver cased bullets were tipped with the same celestial bronze and Olympian gold alloy as the others, but the inside held Greek fire capsules and a nitro-glycerine cartridge that pushed the bullet into even higher speeds. The nitro rounds were meant for Titans and Gods, and could crush into a target at Mach-5. He'd never used one before but was eager to try, be wary Titans.

Percy considered thinking up some incredible 'mission impossible' escape plan but after a heavy sigh he collected his key card and walked out of his room. He casually strolled down the hallways which, despite the hotel being run by monsters, had incredible taste to it, the carpet was a lush red with a matching wall-paper that had a low gold swirling pattern following the length. Percy noticed the same woman as before turn a corner.

He could have sworn that he could hear her sniff at the air ever so slightly. All of his suspicions had only been confirmed when there was an excited glint enter the her eyes. Percy changed course at the first intersection and went to the stairwell where he clung to the shadows instantly. He was one of the stealthiest in his line of work, only Artemis was ever able to catch him out, but what with her being a literal Goddess of the Hunt, he was happy taking the silver trophy.

The Empousa came rambling into the stairwell in hopes that Percy was still in range and hadn't fled. After a moment of visible confusion on the Empousa's face, she cursed in Greek before strolling back into the hallway she came from. It took a lot of control for Percy to stop himself from laughing at her.

Once he was on the correct floor he internally groaned. Right outside Thalia's door were three Empousa, all eagerly awaiting the one crouching down to pick the lock on the door. Percy only just managed to duck into another hallway to avoid being seen. He picked up the volume on his ear pieces, making the microphone highly sensitive.

"Thalia, three Empousa outside your door. One of them is trying to pick the lock. Electrocute the handle, I'll deal with the other two." Percy told her almost silently. He got a quick confirmation and spun the barrel in his gun. When he heard the first one scream before turning into dust, he rounded the corner with a huge grin on his face and plastered the other two women into a similar shower of dry golden specks.

Thalia opened the door with a disproving face. That gun was only going to attract more monsters. She quickly pulled him inside where there was an Iris call happening at that moment.

Percy walked over to the ongoing Iris call and silently nodded his head. "Jackson." Artemis said disapprovingly, obviously having heard the gunshots.

"My lady. Apologies but our time here has come to an end so we need to make haste." Percy told the Goddess of the hunt with an ever so slight bow to his strut before turning heel and facing Thalia once again. "Are you ready to go?" He asked with a neutral smile on show. He had only respect for Artemis, and possibly quite an admiration that he hid very well, but he knew that he had a tiny amount of leeway with winding her up.

"Just about. We'll see you shortly Lady Artemis." Thalia bowed before wiping through the Iris message and turning back to her bigger cousin.

"There are more coming in from the Eastern stairwell. I've managed to locate the water mains for this floor. Close the door, I'll flood them out. We can make our escape out of the widow of the room across the hall, it faces the pool at the front entrance, either that or we fight them head on for thirteen floors straight down." Percy's plan wasn't flawless, and it included Thalia jumping out of a thirteenth floor window, but it did have them surviving with relative ease.

She hesitated while his plan sunk in for a moment, "Do it.", she nodded, mentally steeling herself for what was to come. Percy gave a quick nod in respone and walked over to the comfy armchair in the middle of Thalia's room. A few months ago she would have questioned it, but now she knew for the better exactly what he was doing.

Using his powers to this extent was strenuous and it would take a lot of out him, but he could do it a lot easier if he was comfortable. He pushed his fingers gently into his temples. A moment later Thalia could hear the pipes burst open but then a huge surged rocked the entire hotel from the ground floor upwards. She could feel the water around her ankles within a few seconds. He'd ruptured the pipes flowing throughout the entire building. She couldn't help but wonder exactly how many of the rooms were soon to be flooded, it was quite the increase in power since the last time he'd tried anything like that.

Percy opened his eyes, the once solid but calm green was now glowing vibrantly as the power he'd used ebbed and flowed out of his body. He had a grin on his face and nodded to the window. Thalia looked out at the carnage he had caused. "Looks like we won't have to wait for that ground floor pool any-more. We can escape from this one." He chuckled.

Once the water had risen to chest height, Percy opened the door and literal tons of water rushed in. It would have engulfed them completely had Percy not been the strongest son of Poseidon for a great many centuries.

The water rushed straight past them and out through the open window. Percy took Thalia's hand and they gently glided through the enormous stream until they touched down thirteen floors below their starting point. Thalia had never been so relieved in her entire life. They hadn't exactly been going slow, but it was a lot calmer than if they'd relieved on her powers of the wind. They quickly left the hotel grounds without any more monster occurrences, and disappeared into the strip of clubs and fast food shops.

Percy hadn't found out why they were in Dubai until they had arrived and though he had suspicions that it was to follow up the hunt for the missing girl he already knew that he hated the palce from the moment he'd teleported in. He was immortal and picked up quite a few tricks of his own, but he couldn't teleport anywhere unless he was in the sea, otherwise his powers were limited to turning into a small breeze of sea spray, and he couldn't go as far in that.

"Where are we going now? Artemis must be near, but even she cannot hide herself and her Hunters for long in a city like this. No plants in sight, let alone a forest. I can imagine that only the beach would suffice." Percy looked hopeful. Even Dubai slept for a few hours in the small of night. A few hours was all that would be needed for Artemis and the Hunters.

Thalia sighed, knowing that this was exactly what he'd wanted to hear, "Yes we're going to the beach, now hurry, Artemis doesn't want to be kept waiting. They've found Karina which means that we must get going." Thalia sounded off to Percy.

"They found her already? Why the Hades did I need to come here if they found her without my help?" He asked sceptically. His entire presence was pointless and in the end he'd only managed to kill a boring couple of Empousa, plus whatever causalities were caused by rupturing the entire plumbing system of the hotel.

"They found the monsters not long after we arrived at the Hotel, by the sounds of what Lady Artemis told me, the monsters were on their way to us because of a massive beacon of power, sound familiar?" She asked him with a raised brow as she looked over her shoulder at him.

"Hey, don't blame me! I'm pretty sure that I'm the ONLY person able to hide their power, which means I never had anyone teach me how to do it, it's really hard to hide it completely." He told her defensively, "Not all of us get a natural handicap in the form of the silver Goddesses' blessing." He continued before laughing slightly.

"Blessings aside, it sounds like you didn't even try to hide your power, the Empousa outside my door had already gone insane by the ramblings they were spouting. Only much stronger monsters will be able to stand your presence." Thalia reasoned. She went silent after that but kept glancing back at Percy with an uncomfortable expression.

"There's something else." Percy deadpanned. They kept their pace high, as soon as they were out of sight of the mortals, Percy led Thalia to the edge of the seas, they could move so much faster from there on out.

"Yes. Artemis has received word from Olympus. It's dire and the only Demi-God the council has requested was you. Artemis will take you with her once we have all returned to New York." Thalia told him, now avoiding making eye contact altogether.

Camp Half-Blood, and the Hunters as well, always seemed to gain an air of tension whenever Olympus asked for Percy specifically, because that meant that undoubtedly something huge was going down.

Since becoming an immortal hunter of monsters, he'd become so much stronger. He was free of the council but if the threat was great enough, everyone knew that Percy would always fight for them, his loyalty knew no bounds. It had become a crux for him in the past but he'd overcome it by becoming a man living for himself, choosing loyalty as a brilliant leading trait rather than having it as a flaw leading him into danger.

He was stronger than anyone realized, especially mentally. His willpower was unending, and a true testament to the physical strength housed in his body.

"Shit." Percy said casually as ever. The moment they had both stepped onto the surface of the water, they shot forwards at insane speeds, skirting along the sea front watching out for the silver hint that Artemis always left behind. After five minutes of searching Percy was getting restless and slowed to a halt. He conjured some mist and threw a drachma into. After requesting his vision he was put through to the silver Goddess.

"Lady Artemis, where have you set up camp?" He got straight to the point. Artemis looked up for a second of confusion as to where the voice had come from. "This far down the line and I'll still never get used to that." She muttered quietly before looking through the Iris. She always found herself pleasantly surprised when she was speaking to Perseus Jackson.

Any man that had gone through as many trials and tribulations as he had would have been broken apart and filtered down to a torn soul, but Perseus Jackson was more than just a man, he was a being so full of the hopes of other people that they were still to meet a threat that could tear him down. He no longer just held the fire of hope for all of the Demigods out there, he was starting to become a beacon to those that would call themselves his peers out of the Gods.

"Perseus, we are on the southern shoreline, where are you?" She asked him incredulously, watching with mild entertainment as his features crumpled for a moment as the realization hit that he had either got the wrong location, or they had gone in the wrong direction after leaving the hotel.

Percy did a double take, "The s_outhern _shoreline?" He asked out loud but he was swearing internally. He thought they were on the western shoreline, luckily for him they were getting closer and closer to the pinnacle of the southwestern point of the coast, which gave him an idea.

"That's what I said." Artemis confirmed. Percy thought about it for a moment, it should definitely work, especially for someone like Artemis, she'd be able to spot a wave in the darkness of night with ease, hopefully.

"Lady Artemis, tell me when, IF, you see the wave going sideways instead of inland." Percy said as he concentrated for a moment and sent a thirty foot wave careering across the shoreline until it finally reached the southern shore. After another moment Artemis told him that she could see it. He instantly knew where they had to go in order to regroup, unfortunately it would be quite the run if they decided to hoof it along the beach.

"Come, we can move a lot faster underwater." Percy took Thalia by the hand despite her cries that the water was Poseidon's domain. Thalia knew for a fact that Poseidon would never harm her, he was fully aware of how close they were and after Kronos' attempt on Olympus, he even personally appraised her for her war efforts, but she still didn't like it.

A few minutes into their forced swim a giant watery faced appeared out of nowhere in front of them, gliding along the currents in front of them as Percy effortlessly swam forwards, bringing Thalia along with him in stride.

"Perseus." Poseidon's voice boomed underwater. Thalia gulped, that was it, she'd gone too far now. Poseidon was about to kill her and Percy for this unforgivable act! Or at least, that was how her overactions were running around inside her brain.

"Good to see you, sorry I missed our last check-in, there was some trouble involving a Titan in Boston that didn't know he was a Titan." Percy waved slightly, acknowledging the fact that Poseidon was at least there in a watery visage.

"Yes, so I heard. It was unfortunate but by the sounds of it he has been taken to a special area of Tartarus to undergo some, what did Hades call it? Memory jogging or something awful like that. Once he fully understands and knows who and what he is, we will be doing some extensive investigation as to whether or not he can live peacefully with us." Poseidon explained. Percy wasn't sure quite what the extent of living peacefully involved but he doubted a Titan of all people would be willing to do it after being subjected to 'memory jogging' in Tartarus.

"You're needed on Olympus. Artemis has already been informed. What the council are going to ask of you is greater than anything someone should have to face. I want you to know right now that you don't have to accept it, you are free to walk out of the throne room at any time. Now go, Lady Artemis is waiting for you." Poseidon disappeared without waiting for Percy to say any form of goodbye. Thalia looked at Percy's face expectantly. He only had a frown that didn't stay around for long as they had resurfaced, still as dry as the moment they left the beach. Percy willed a stream of water to constantly follow his feet so that the sand stayed off of his beloved shoes. Such a woman, Thalia thought before grinning about it.

"Lady Artemis." Percy kneeled, again, in the water that stopped the sand from getting on his prized trousers. Artemis was tolerant of Percy because truth be told he was completely different from the males that her hunters had come to hate. He was kind and caring, respectful and loyal. He was also a complete badass with almost any form of weaponry…

Except a bow, he sucked with a bow, but he more than made up his lack of archery skills with an alternate form of marksmanship, and Artemis couldn't deny that if he'd accepted godhood, it would have made sense for him to have become some kind of God of firearms, if nothing else just to take something away from Ares.

"We must leave now. Thalia you are in charge. Percy let's go." Artemis issued her orders and everyone reacted straight away, Percy simply nodded and held out his hand casually. Artemis shook her head and grabbed him by the shoulder. There was no way she'd teleport herself into the throne room holding a man's hand in full view of the other eleven Olympians, she knew when Percy was playing tricks, even in a serious situation he always found time to pick at her in good natured jest. No chance Jackson, not today.

They were on Olympus within the blink of an eye and Percy was delighted to see that he was easily the most fashionable man in the grand throne room. He walked confidently through the vast space until he was dead centre in the room. He'd been through this enough to know generally how it went. He would be addressed by Zeus and after all of the formalities were done with he would finally be told exactly what was going on.

Apollo flashed him an approving grin towards Percy's attire to which the young immortal nodded in acknowledgement. He knew he was well dressed but this was just his work suit, this was the one that occasionally would get a sword or a couple of arrows go through it. He kept meaning to wear his nicer suits on occasion when going to Olympus but always forgot last minute.

As he glanced around to take note of what Gods were in attendance, he saw Ares grin with a huge curve of mischief in his face, but Percy knew that was only because of the brand new Hephaestus made armament he carried on his hip. The God of War couldn't help but be impressed by the kilo of celestial death that Percy carrier with him.

"Perseus Jackson." Zeus' voice boomed out to the throne room. Percy frowned, he hated being called Perseus. He was tempted to tell Zeus to get with the times, but wasn't certain that his revolver matched up to that master bolt, which he knew could deliver a nasty punch. He was strong but ultimately he wasn't sure if he could survive a blast from an angry King of Olympus, not just yet at least.

"Lord Zeus. You have summoned me?" He projected himself so well, the confidence in his voice was higher than anything else, even Aphrodite was impressed, Aphrodite being the goddess who could charm-speak almost anything or anyone she wanted.

"I have. Tell me lad, what do you know of the Primordial Gods?" Zeus' question threw Percy right off, he truly did not know how to answer that question.

"I, ugh... What?" He asked again, just to make sure he hadn't misheard.

"The primordial Gods my son." Poseidon confirmed the question.

"You mean like Gaia, Ouranos, that one for night, Nyx. Those Gods?" Percy responded calmly. He knew a little about them, but not enough to understand the relevance of them in conjunction to him being summoned to Olympus. Maybe he'd angered one of them at some point?

"The very same. Olympus is on the brink of war again Perseus, this threat is so much larger than Kronos. The Primordial Gaia is on the rise. Mother earth is stirring and with the help of Tartarus, she is rising to take Olympus down." Zeus' words fell heavily to Percy's ears, the weight of understanding was heavy but not something that Percy would falter under.

Zeus grumbled slightly before continuing with his explanation, "We simply cannot hold off against the two of them. Primordials are almost limitless in power. But they also all tend to slumber for eons save for very small parts of their conscious. Gaia and Tartarus are rising with plans to build an army, they are led by a Demigod son of Tartarus."

Hades twitched slightly at the mention of this but otherwise remained silent while Zeus continued to speak, "We've never seen a Demigod from a Primordial before so we don't know exactly how powerful he is but it would be lethal to assume anything other than that he is extremely dangerous." Zeus told him. That was a lot to take in. Percy wasn't sure how he could help Olympus but he knew that whatever Zeus asked of him he was damn well going to try, this was too big for him of all people to sit out.

"We have been contacted by another Primordial. Chronos, who claims to be present on behalf of one known only as Chaos. Chronos is not to be confused by the Titan you killed, this Primordial is the sheer fabric of time itself and as such has remained the most constant variable in the moving world. With this being the case he is quite possibly the strongest representation of his true self and has actually appeared to us." That was quite interesting to hear, not that Zeus was being particularly clear about it.

"Chaos cannot directly interfere for it is weak in it's slumber, but has foreseen a great battle. Between many Demigods and the army Gaia assembles. Chronos while powerful and able to manifest himself even whilst in deep slumber is tied to neutrality, as he is an essential force of reality. Which means that he can help us but cannot fight. We believe that only you can successfully pull off what we have planned. Do you wish to hear more?" Zeus reclined in his throne ever so slightly. The grin on Percy's face told him all he needed, he was up for anything.

"Let's hear it." He shifted his posture slightly, but that was the only thing that reminded the Gods that he wasn't a machine, that his patience had its limits and he would eventually fidget in such a meeting.

Zeus waved slightly and Athena spoke up, of course she was the one with the plan, "When the central civilisation moved west we went through a phase in Rome. It changed us, we Gods took on different aspects. Those Gods are still around today, we are they, and they are us. Zeus demonstrated by changing into Jupiter and back. The colour scheme alone was obnoxiously gold, but that hair of his was just ridiculous. How he was not sponsored by Head 'N' Shoulders for such locks was beyond Percy, however, it was best not to make such comments out loud or he'd probably be murdered.

"Right, I get it, so you're obviously about to turn around and say that there is an entire Demigod camp full of Roman children, right? I'm not wrong am I?" Percy asked, his expression ever unchanging. Athena was momentarily taken by surprise with his show of intelligence in the matter. She quickly found her words once she metaphorically picked her jaw up off the floor.

"That is correct. There is an old, almost lost prophecy that goes back to things that we thought were over for good, but now? We're starting to believe that it was never meant to have been finished back then, but rather in a time not far from now. We believe you are directly entwined within it. A certain line references old foes baring arms at death's door. The Greeks and Romans have never gotten along with each other and if that is in fact what the line refers to then we could break this prophecy by uniting the two factions." Athena explained, looking thrilled by having such a mental challenge after what had to have been quite a few years of not really having that much mental stimulation.

"Right, but my lady, if I may?" Percy gestured with his hand. Athena looked puzzled but nodded to him slowly before the young immortal walked forwards towards her ever so slightly.

"Prophecies are… Well, I highly expect that you of all people can see through utter bullshit, and prophecies? I'm sorry Apollo but prophecies are never, EVER, that clear. To believe that a line from this one that you guys have found would be so simple as to refer to two factions of Demigods would be idiotic." He told them. They all looked slightly deflated with how quickly he had shot them down. He turned around the throne room slowly, looking at them all. They had all held such hope that they could stop this rising threat so easily.

"I can see it in your face." He said, looking up at Athena once again, "You know as well as I do that this isn't what the prophecy is referring to, you're just as hopeful as them and that has caused you to be misguided in your wisdom, if only for a fraction of a second. Think about this from a fresh perspective, or understand that at this current moment in time, you do not know what the prophecy refers to." Percy told her in the most respectful way that someone could turn around and say to a God 'Sorry, you're wrong.'

"But right now, it is the only thing we have, which is better than to move forwards with absolutely nothing in mind." Athena told him after a few seconds of silence.

"Hera has a plan. A rather controversial plan, but one none the less. You are going to be sent to the Roman camp, and a Roman is to have his mind wiped and sent to Camp Half-Blood. The two of you will bridge the gap and bring about the greatest truce we have ever seen." Athena explained. The room went silent while Percy stood there staring at her, processing this in his mind. It could in theory work but the scale was far too big for just a singular Demigod swap.

"And are you planning on wiping my memory as well?" He asked after a minute of silence. Contemplating this plan of theirs, he had nothing to lose by going to a Roman Camp, but what of the boy to be taken from them? He'd have to pretty much be their strongest Demigod for this to have a chance of working.

"No, that would be unfair to you after everything you've done for us. We figured that if you are to succeed there is one major thing you need to do. You need to lessen the conflict between the two groups." Hera joined in with the briefing. Percy looked up at the Goddess who hated him the most.

"How can I do that? The groups are unaware of each other, it surely can't be down to me and one other to complete this task on our own?" He asked, a tiny bit of anger seeping into his words, they were asking a lot of him, and he was unsure of whether he could even succeed with it or not, not that it was changing his answer at all.

He was definitely going to at least try, but the odds of success?

"You need to lessen their conflict in the past. Chronos will send you back through time, and into Greece as it once was, back when it was our home. He will go with you and explain to our past selves what is going on. The Primordials that have decided to aid us are willing to give you full immortality, a level far beyond what you perceive as immortality. You will train from the moment you arrive and secretly aid our society through time, preferably from the shadows however I don't see that being the case with you. Once you complete your task, if everything has gone right we will see you again very soon from this point and you will be ready to go to camp Jupiter to stop the greatest war the Olympus has ever seen." Zeus finished. Percy's jaw must have hit the floor because he was truly lost for words. This was NOT what he was expecting at all. Bridge the gap? Yeah, that might just be possible after thousands of years of training.

After what seemed like an eternity, he spoke out.

"Let me get this straight. You want to send me to Ancient Greece and from the start you want me to train and prevent the Greeks and Romans from getting into a conflict that will prevent the truce from being possible. But you don't want me to prevent the actual conflicts, they are obviously too greater part of our history to cut out completely." Percy took a breath, calculating everything that was going on at this moment.

"I am to ride out the civilizations as they come and go and continue with the God's right up until this point in time where you will recall me. Have I got that correct?" Percy turned and looked from god to god. No one disputed his words. "OK then, just so that we're clear on that. How far back do you want to send me?" He asked again.

"You need to be in Greece from the beginning. Chronos can only make one trip, any mistakes and we've blown it out of the water. We cannot risk messing up our one chance." Poseidon told his son. There was a sad glint in his eyes at what was happing.

"That's five thousand years of solid training. I'll become the most powerful Demigod in history, although I suppose it's been a little while since I was really a Demigod." Percy stated casually, still mulling their plan over in his mind.

"There's no doubt about that. You'll be with us from the beginning Perseus. There's no one better suited to this quest back through time than you." Artemis told him from his throne.

"Yeah, besides, dude you're already the strongest anyway, I don't see any change." Apollo grinned like a child.

"OK, I'll take this quest. But I do have one request to aid me in my journey." Percy told them. The council looked relieved beyond words at his acceptance of this quest. They were sentencing him to five thousand years of training for yet another great war. Time wasn't on their side, but it would be on his.

"Of course, anything." Zeus told him instantly.

Percy thought about the best way to ask for this before the courage came out. "Respectfully Zeus, it isn't your place to decide on this one. I have to ask Hephaestus for the final word. I will need a new set of armour to carry me through the ages. And while I always carry Anaklusmos with me with pride, some events in our history would be catastrophic if that sword fell into the wrong hands again." Percy explained, hoping that he didn't offend anyone. Artemis nodded knowingly.

"I already had created such a suit for you Perseus, we Gods ask much but we aren't as unforgivably expectant as some may think." Hephaestus let out a hearty chuckle as he clicked his fingers, Percy's suit was replaced by an ancient Greek battle armour. It was an amazing white that had a sea green trim along the edges. Percy had to hand it to the God, he really knew how to create some amazing armour.

The pen in his hand extended into Anaklusmos for one final time before it too had glowed and changed. The blade was long and sharp with a silver glint on one side, he knew this was a different metal, but not of Stygian Iron. The rest of the blade itself was completely black and oozed power. He felt a lot stronger just holding the blade.

"That sword is extremely powerful and I expect that only you will ever wield it. It's extremely loyal which is fitting for a person such as you. Cherish it Percy Jackson, it will be your closest friend." Percy put the sword in the scabbard that came with it and smiled gratefully.

"As the central civilisation advances, so will that armour, it will change to reflect the time period, the same goes with the sword. I'd have made a shield but it is not your style is it?" Hephaestus asked, knowing Percy already. Percy shook his head. He wasn't big on defence. A sword and his gun were more than enough for him, though that reminded him. He already knew where his holster was, on the side of his hip.

"What about this? Would this be cheating? I've only got a few rounds left for it anyway. It would become dead weight before long." Percy said, looking at his gun lovingly. Hephaestus grumbled something when Zeus gave him a knowing look.

"The lad may take the firearm, but be warned, it may cause more bother than it prevents. Hephaestus, fix his limited munitions problem but do not turn it into a ticking time bomb." Zeus told him. Hephaestus looked up with glee before he shrunk and took the gun from Percy before vanishing.

Literally three seconds later he returned with a broad smile on his face. "The barrel will restore its lost bullets on its return to the chamber. Push that little green button until it turns red and you'll have one of those nasty little nitrous rounds. Have fun with that. Don't use it too much though, you'll get rusty on your other skills." Hephaestus announced after returning to his throne.

"Somehow after five thousand years of training, I doubt I will. I might even be able to shoot an arrow in the right direction for more than six paces." Percy told them which earned a few laughs from the Olympians.

"Let's face it Percy, you really won't, even with five thousand years of archery practice, which is why, after your decision to undertake this gruelling quest without so much as a moment's hesitation, I've decided to give you my blessing." Apollo told him. The council looked on with a wave of mumbles and general murmurs of agreement.

Hephaestus spoke up once again after seeing his brother give Percy his blessing, "Agreed. The armour was a formality that I was happy to oblige with but a blessing would be my faith in you above all else. There was a lot of fire in battles back in the day and being a son of Poseidon that won't be easy for you lad. Take my blessing, and never fear the fire again. You'll also probably be able to tinker with your weapons and armour better than almost anyone else." Hephaestus told him after Percy glowed a brief red. He couldn't believe it, blessed by two Gods in five minutes.

The day was definitely proving to have it's ups and downs.

"Well, seeing as they're doing it, I can hardly let you go without my own. It was my plan and if you're to respond to the rigorous training then you'll need my blessing." Athena's eyes found his own and he was unable to fathom any words. Percy glowed bright grey before it dulled again.

"Thank you, all of you." He said at last.

"Hang on, I can't have my smelly husband beat me especially when he got rid of your sexy suit." Aphrodite said out loud and blessed him. The women of the room began to curse Aphrodite's antics before they saw what it was doing to Percy. His battle armour briefly dissolved revealing his immaculate chest. His looks were only made that much more perfect. The suit returned briefly.

"With my blessing you'll have the power to call upon any clothing you desire, you'll also be able to use your powers to don your armour instantly." Aphrodite told him. That seemed to have appeased Hephaestus' annoyed looks. He really liked how that one worked, that would come in handy. He nodded his gratitude to the Gods, he was just about to turn and say that he was ready to go when his father spoke up.

"I can't have you blessed by four Gods and not to mention the owl woman there and not bless you myself my son." Poseidon beamed, he'd just made his son more powerful than most of the Gods. Zeus grumbled something about an unfair advantage to Poseidon whereas Hades beamed with mischief, he was loving every moment of this.

"I too refuse to be outdone by my family. Perseus, it is unheard of that I would bless a child of Poseidon, but if anyone deserves such a thing, it has only ever been you, does anyone disagree to the blessings that have been bestowed upon Perseus today?" Zeus bellowed. It looked like Ares was about to say something but he quickly zipped his mouth shut.

"Good. With my blessing you'll have a partial control of the winds, not a huge amount but it will be enough to influence most battles that you come across. You'll also be extremely hard to kill with lightning based energy attacks. _Very _difficult to kill." Zeus winked at him. A smile visible underneath that beard of his. Percy opened his mouth to say something when Hades too had spoken up.

"Boy you are responsible for the return of my throne, I'd say you deserve a blessing after just that act. With my blessing you'll receive a very similar invulnerability that you did from the river Styx, except no vital spot and no other bad things that Nymph gave you last time." Hades chuckled evilly.

"Can you do that brother?" Both Zeus and Poseidon asked at the same time with incredible synchronisation.

"Who knows? It'll be fun to see her try and stop me though." Hades laughed once again as he felt himself being summoned from the Underworld, no doubt Styx herself.

"Brothers, she is calling me. If that is everything, good luck on your journey Percy Jackson. I will no doubt see you in the next couple of days in my time, but for you, I wish you best of luck for the next five thousand years." Hades said before he melted into a black pool of smoke and fell through the floor.

"Well, I refuse to be outdone by my brother. Perseus Jackson is the ONLY male that I will acknowledge as a man and not a boy. He has proven himself time and again that he is above and beyond the rest and multiple times put his life on the line to save my hunters. And with your archery skills, it will take both mine and my brothers blessing for you to be any good." Artemis smirked. The Olympians found Percy's reaction funny when he glowed a bright silver like the moon light outside.

"Right!" Percy made sure that he was the next one to speak, "This is incredibly overwhelming and I'm grateful for all of you, but this is getting ridiculous and I'm eager to take my trip into the past. The next five thousand years are not going to be easy for me." Percy started, silencing the council from their blessing rampage.

"Not quite done yet punk." Ares got up and shrunk to human size. He was still huge but eye level with Percy. Percy didn't know what he was expecting from the God, but a blessing wasn't it. "You stepped toe to toe with me on a beach when you could hardly even hold a sword. Since then I've come to respect your abilities even if you are still a punk. Here." Ares bellowed with a grin as he struck Percy across the face. Percy glowed bright red as he stood, withstanding the might of Ares. The God grinned even further before returning to his throne. The punch had hurt, and he expected it might have even done an incurable amount of damage if not for Hade's blessing of invulnerability.

"Thank you Lord Ares." Percy said with a nod, the only time he'd ever acknowledged Ares as a Lord of the council.

"Whatever punk, be glad your other blessings worked the way they were meant to, I didn't pull that punch." Ares responded, looking away from him. The Gods were silent, all grinning.

Then two flashes behind Percy alerted him to his senses and he almost reached for his blade. There stood a beautiful woman, easily on par with Aphrodite herself.

She had creamy white skin and shoulder length straight obsidian black hair that looked like it was flowing against the currents of the air. She had a dress that shifted like the stars themselves, with planets all around them. She had a dress of creation itself, Percy linked the pieces and with his now somewhat advanced cognitive abilities, he realized that this woman had to have been a Primordial, and since he already knew that Chronos was male, this must have been the manifestation of Chaos, a glorious visage.

The man, Chronos,m wore an immaculate suit that matched his slightly tan skin perfectly. He had a single watch on his left wrist and a pocket watch in his suit's front facing pouch where the pocket square should have been. Apart from that they both looked as casual as ever. Chronos took off his sunglasses and looked around the room at the Olympians.

"We ready to rock?" Chronos asked with a smirk. Percy was at first taken back by the simplicity of it all but got over that pretty quickly. "Thank you all. I'll see you in five thousand years." Percy told the council. Poseidon's eyes were brimming with pride. Chronos nodded and suddenly they simply were no longer there. Percy felt the need to force his eyes shut and when he reopened them, they were on Olympus outside the throne room, the outside view no longer spanning the width of Manhattan but the side of a huge mountain, they really were on THE mount Olympus.

The Olympus that he once knew was no more, instead there was a grand hall made from mighty pillars of carved stone. The floor looked like it was etched from pure marble slabs. The beauty of the temple sat in it's simplicity for that all it was, the temple of the Gods that sat atop Mount Olympus. Little could compare to the breathtaking views surrounding the terrain that was to become his home for at least the next few thousand years.

He was going to have to be careful in whom he made enemies with here because he knew only what he'd been taught about the history of Ancient Greece, but now, as opposed to Demigod history books and mortal mythology, he was going to have to live through everything that happened. He had a vague idea of where he was going to go. There was a lot more to Greece's mainland that he could see.

"Pre-Minoan Age kid, we're sitting somewhere between three thousand and two-seven thousand years before all that son of God stuff kicked off. If I was a betting man-God-Lord of Time, I'd say we're approx two-nine-forty BCE." Chronos announced with a heavy sigh. Going this far back with a passenger no less was taxing to the God who was in deep slumber.

After all was said and done they both walked into the grand open throne room of the temple like they owned the place, the council was already in a session and arguing about something. They all stopped and stared at the newcomers as they walked right into the centre. Both of them were rolling in waves of power. It was clear to them that these were no ordinary mortals that had tried to pilgrimage to the home of the Gods, not that anyone had managed it before.

"Olympians. I am Chronos, Primordial of Time. And this," He pointed to Percy, "Is Percy Jackson." He grinned as the council began its uproar of arguing.


	2. Chapter 2

****Chapter ********2 ********– ********Settling In****

****Ancient Greece 2940 B.C.E****

The Olympians were in total uproar all shouting at one another over who had secretly sired the man in front of them. It would have been a serious violation of the balance in power between the Elder Gods if one of them were to have harboured Percy with the intent of using him to tip the balance in their favour, he was after all practically emanating power that he wasn't used to be able to control due to all of the blessings he'd received.

Percy decided to let Chronos do the talking. He stood there rather impassively with his arms folded, scanning the room to take in all of the little details that he might have otherwise missed.

There were detailed carvings depicting battles that all of them had fought or at least partaken in, all carved along the edges of the roof. As he was stood analysing the crafted artworks he soon realized that the accents of the Gods were slightly off, then he realized that they weren't in America any-more, the Gods themselves were all speaking in perfect Greek, but Percy's brain was hardwired for this, and especially with Athena's blessing, it came as naturally to him as the language he was used to.

How much was this journey going to change him? He was preparing for a war that even Olympus didn't think they could win, not without having Percy go the long way around, so how much was the burden of all that going to change him as a person?

He was worried after all was said and done that when he finally got back to the right time that none of friends would see him in the same light, that they would be terrified of the person he had become, or would become. He tried not to think about it too much but he hoped that after everything was said and done that they would still be able to look him in the eyes, especially as he knew that he'd be fighting with them again one day, side by side taking down the strongest enemy they'd ever have to face.

The Gods had calmed down with the help of Chronos and were eyeing Percy cautiously. "Come forwards boy, tell us your story." Zeus told him. He appeared to Percy as a much more forgiving man than he did in the modern day, but after all that the Gods had been through, Percy hardly blamed the man. He firstly needed to get his bearing rights, he didn't know for sure what time he was in, and since the Gods wanted him there from the beginning he could only assume they meant somewhere around the Titanomacy.

Looking around he noticed that on top of the fact that ALL of the Elder Gods were present, Aphrodite was also there sitting comfortably on her throne, so as a matter of fact, the Titans had already been overruled and Kronos imprisoned. He felt comfort in that, as while he was excited to test out the Titan bullets, he knew all too well exactly how much more powerful Kronos was when he wasn't inside the body of another. Percy did as Zeus had asked him and walked forwards so that everyone could hear him clearly.

Clearing his throat he began with confidence, "I arrived with Lord Chronos from a long time in the future. I cannot reveal too much about your histories from here to there but I'll try to inform you the best I can of the situation." Percy was happy with what he'd been given to work with, none of the Gods had interrupted him. "My name is Perseus Jackson and I am the strongest son of Poseidon to have ever lived." He continued confidently. A few whispers were thrown around the throne room. Poseidon himself raised an eyebrow but didn't interrupt him.

"In my life I have achieved a great feat in service for Olympus. I successfully defeated Kronos with the help of an old friend while the you all fought for three days to kill a monstrous creatures of immense proportions." Percy continued. Zeus couldn't refrain from asking questions any longer. He immediately sat forwards in his throne, looking down on Percy below him. Percy made a quick note to remind Zeus of how much he resembled the Disney character back in the day. He knew there was a possibility of reaching a nasty end from the master lightning bolt, but for the life of him Percy knew it would be worth it.

"You brought down the Titan that took myself and my brothers to kill with all of our might?" Zeus asked incredulously, but he didn't disprove Percy straight away, he was a far kinder Zeus than modern day king of Olympus. Percy was actually starting to like the well mannered God of the past. He wondered exactly how this would shape up his relationship with Olympus five thousand years from now. Percy nodded without saying a word. Zeus sat back in his throne and waved for Percy to continue. Percy took a moment to get over how easy going they were.

"After I defeated Kronos I found myself at a loss for purpose amongst the world I had grown up in. I was allowed to hunt alongside Artemis." Percy began but once he saw the look of outrage on Artemis' face he corrected it immediately, "Please do not mistake my claim for arrogance, I do not hunt alongside you to try to best you, in my time I became a hunter of such skill that you yourself saw fit to hunt alongside me. You will come to realise in time why I am the only male in the cosmos that you trust." He corrected before bowing to the Goddess. His actions seemed to have appeased her for the moment being though he knew that telling her he was the only one she trusted would come back to bite him later on.

"A short time later and Olympus is facing its largest threat yet. A Primordial is rising, she is bringing an army of Titans and giants that were born with the sole purpose of deposing the Gods. We simply aren't ready for that. You Olympians had asked me to undertake a mission to go back to this point in time and train for the time in-between. My other objective is to fix a long rivalry that has caused old friends to become enemies until the end of time." Percy explained. Still the Gods remained almost silent. He could see from the looks they were giving him that they understood what he was telling them, it was just a question as to whether or not they believed him.

"We recognise your great quest. Apollo had a prophecy a few years back detailing of an incredible warrior out of his time. We do not doubt your claim to be this man, but we need some proof that you are as capable as you say." Poseidon told him. Percy didn't exactly expect to be treated this well by any of them and was shocked when Poseidon was still being the father that he knew and was used to. The God didn't even know Percy, and to him, he wasn't born yet.

"Of course Lord Poseidon." Percy began but to his utter surprise, Poseidon immediately told him to call him father. Ares chuckled and made a point that the child might not even be his own, and that the council should let him kill the child.

"Don't be foolish Ares. I can feel the sea writhe within his veins, there is no doubt that this child is mine. Besides from the ocean in his blood can you not see the power rolling off of him? Never mind the most powerful Demigod of mine, he may well be the most powerful of any of us." Poseidon started, effectively shutting the God of War up. Percy gave him a warm smile.

"So back to that demonstration. I don't suppose you could conjure a few targets for me?" He asked. Chronos who was still there laughed, "Be careful with that. They aren't ready for this kind of technology." He start as he waved his hand. A few straw dummies appeared with an ocean blue flash. Percy grinned before taking a step back. He pulled his custom revolver out of its holster and fired three rounds. Each round hit its mark and the dummies exploded into nothing more than charred ashes.

"Very impressive. You have an automaton in hand held form." Hephaestus deadpanned. He sounded uninterested but Percy knew better.

"Lord Hephaestus, you should take more credit for your own works of art. You were the one to create such a weapon for me after I saved Olympus. Not to mention this suit of armour as a parting gift." Percy pointed at the rest of him.

Hephaestus nodded approvingly before grinning. "That armour does have my signature craftsmanship." He concluded. There was no doubt about it. It was a Hephaestus work of art that none apart from he could create.

"So your marksmanship is good, what about your inherited powers? You did mention that you were my strongest son." Poseidon jumped back in, having quite the idea of exactly how strong his son was, he just wanted to make a point of it to his fellow Olympians. Percy nodded, knowing what his father wanted to do. He felt around for a moment before deciding on what the best method of showing off would be. His father had given him his blessing before he'd gone back in time and now he was almost as strong as he is.

Percy turned his body to water and expanded himself in size until he was the size of the Gods, a miniature ocean swirling at his base, he let himself calm a little bit before turning to them. "How's this?" He smirked at the shocked expressions of the Gods. Even Chronos was impressed by the show of power. After he felt satisfied that he'd made his point he returned to his normal size and state. His regular invulnerable flesh and ichor blood appearing before the Gods. He thought that if he died he'd eventually reform but he wasn't actually sure that he could die, not in this time at least. Chronos had given him an immortality above that of the Gods.

"So tell me Perseus, what is your plan?" Hera spoke up. This was the first time she'd spoken during this meeting and he was delighted to see that much like the other Gods, except for maybe Ares, she too was far warmer than her future self. It was refreshing to see them acting so differently. Hopefully when he returned to the modern times they would still be that way about him. He had high hopes for it, especially knowing that the rest of Hera's plan could only ever succeed if he didn't fail in his mission now.

"Like I said. When I take my leave I shall train and watch over Greece. I will report back every hundred years to let you know of my progress. After everything that's happened and will happen again. I will be born in the future and you must all promise to keep my current existence from the rest of the world. Only the people in this room know of the plan. It must remain that way until the day I return. I shall take my leave. I'm going to go and build myself a house." Percy laughed dryly before giving them all a deep bow and dismissing himself.

None of the Olympians argued however he knew full well that they were all going to be deep in discussion about this. He heard Chronos say farewell to them as the Primordial traced Percy's footsteps out of the temple and followed him to where the immortal was analysing the best path down from Olympus.

First Percy thanked Chronos for making it possible before the Primordial took his leave as well. Percy couldn't help but grin wildly knowing that with Athena's blessing his architectural plans would suffice for a grand house, and with Hephaestus' blessing, he'd actually be able to build it with incredible ease. He gave one last glance at the throne room to Olympus before summoning a wave to carry him down mount Olympus where he wouldn't return for the next one hundred years. He did hope that that didn't mean he'd be without company for the next century however. He was only nineteen, going the next hundred years without someone to talk to would be impossible for him.

Percy had been in Greece for a few years now, most of that was location and settling in. He had built a modest house that fit with the times not far from a local settlement. He was pretty sure that this settlement was one day going to develop into a city roughly in Thessaly's region.

To him it was no longer ancient Greece, it was just Greece, and that went without saying that it was his home. He'd had little contact with the Gods since his arrival save for Poseidon who came to Percy's house every couple of months. It was much nicer than the modern day where the laws were in place to prevent that.

Percy expected a normal day of training. Marksmanship of both archery and firearms. His usual sessions always consisted heavily of swordsmanship. In the ten years of solid training he'd become ever more deadly and proficient with his black blade, but recently he felt a strange tugging sensation in his gut whenever he used the sword. Something was happening, something that he couldn't quite place, and he was sure it was to do with the sword itself. If it was anything at all then it was no doubt the Gods from his time doing something to the sword and not telling him about it. Did Hephaestus say anything about the sword changing alongside him? That would kind have made some sense as to why it made his gut tighten.

He hadn't actually awoken for the day's training yet but instead was having a few extra hours of sleep which he tended to do every few weeks when the sun was especially enthusiastic.

A strange breeze wafted through his homestead, it was coming from the front of his house but for the time he'd been here, the wind had almost always come from the opposite direction. A sudden knock at the door woke him from his chilled out daze. As he walked from the room partition he'd set aside specifically for his sleeping quarters his senses had awoken with a flair of warnings. The aroma was very similar to the strawberry fields of Camp Half-Blood but unless Chronos had brought him a strawberry field from the future, he didn't know who could be at his house.

He pulled back the door and much to his surprise, there stood the human form of Aphrodite. "My lady." Percy bowed deeply in front of the Goddess. She wore a beautiful flowing white toga that barely covered her shapely body. He'd never seen Aprhodite the way she was right now and he'd never really had any interest in her in his time but the woman standing in front of him right now was more than likely going to get exactly what she wanted.

_When in Ancient Greece._ Percy thought to himself, making a mental note to use the actual saying when he eventually got to Rome in the next few thousand years.

"Perseus. You need not bow in front of me." She quickly told him, bringing him back up to his feet. He wondered what the Goddess of love and beauty could want with him. He was just about to get to training.

"I know, but I prefer to." Percy smiled at the Goddess in front of him. He swore he saw a pout before she motioned to the inside of his homestead. He nodded and moved out of the way so that she could come inside. Closing the purposely back dated door-frame, he made his way over to Aphrodite. "Can I offer you something to drink? I only have water or wine, but you know." Percy shrugged. He enjoyed the simplicity of his life the most out of everything. He needed no sustenance, so instead the water was mostly used for washing himself, and the wine, well, he could still get drunk and enjoy the finer taste of Dionysus' brew.

"No thank you Perseus. I came to discuss with you your mission and a few other things." Aphrodite said as her eyes scanned the architecture of the building. She was certain that it was a joint craft by Hephaestus and Athena, but she let it go, it was possible that the immortal in front of her could have conceived such a design.

"Ask what you will of me Goddess. I only have five thousand years in which to toughen up for the Titans." Percy laughed to which Aphrodite smiled at his personal jest. His sense of humour was great, and so was his Greek for one born far away five thousand years in the future. Another gift from the Gods; Hera saw no point in giving him her blessing, but a gift like no other would serve him just as well. She made sure that the moment he reached Greek soil, his natural language would be that of the Gods themselves; Greek.

"Well. Firstly I would have you tell me what the idea behind your mission will achieve." Aphrodite sat herself down on the spread of pelts that Perseus had tried his best to turn into a mattress of some sort. His house was well designed but still small. Anything large would allow for an uninvited breeze to take over. So this little meeting could have gotten very awkward should the Goddess of love wanted it to be, or not awkward if Percy decided to go along with it.

"When I return I will turn up at the camp of old friends that we could never get along with. A member of their own will have his mind wiped and sent to the camp I grew up in. We will earn the trust of each other and when the time is right the boy will have his memories returned to him, and hopefully we can remain friends between camps this time. A great prophecy has stated that old foes bear arms at death's door. I know exactly what this means and when the time comes, I shall guide everyone against the greatest threat the Gods have ever seen." Percy explained thoroughly. Aphrodite was shocked that this plan was so well thought through, but he did have the approval of a Primordial and that was good enough for her.

"So you're going to be spending the next five thousand years training and alone?" Aphrodite tried to put charm into her voice but she was disappointed to find it having no effect at all on Percy. He laughed slightly at her expression.

"I'm afraid none of that will work milady, mostly because you yourself have blessed me. I now have impeccable dress sense and can resist any charm-speak, even that of your own, lady of love." Percy grinned at the expression the Goddess was giving off, it meant little to him after all.

"Also I don't think that I'll be alone. I've been getting some strange senses from my sword as of recently. I think there may be a development stirring from within." Percy frowned, looking down at his reflection from his obsidian black blade. The edge as sharp as ever thanks to his blessing from Hephaestus. He'd been able to create his own courtyard in which not only to train but to sharpen his skills in other aspects, like his ability to maintain his weapons and armour. The whetstone kept his blade sharp, this also helped him to maintain his facial hair at a respectable level. He'd hate to let himself get to the point of having one of those awfully long beards most people had in Greece, that being said he was tempted to get one when they were more in fashion, Spartan style.

"OK, so there's that. So what is your next step?" Aphrodite brought the conversation back on track. Percy though about it for a while.

"I don't know how much I can reveal but I intend to train intently for a few centuries. At some point I shall depart to south when the settlement there becomes what it was meant to be and the rest will remain unsaid until I do it." Percy said firmly. Aphrodite nodded, she respected that there were aspects of his mission that if told to anyone in this time, could potentially change the future in ill ways.

"That will be all for now Perseus." Aphrodite nodded calmly before standing and leaving Percy's home. So it appeared that she really did only come for answers this time around. He was surprised that she'd managed to hold out for this long before venturing forth. Her patience had lasted her nearly three years, he couldn't help but wonder whether or not the early age Aprhodite's patience lasted that long for men she lusted for.

"Always Perseus and never Percy." Percy muttered quietly before his eyes set back on his sword. "Who are you?" He asked absently. The sword seemed to give off a dull hum in response. Percy would have thrown it at the wall and left it alone for a few days but he'd been theorising the entire time he'd had it that there was more to the blade than Hephaestus had let on.

"Do I already know you?" He didn't really care that he was talking to his sword. He'd been more or less alone in the few years he'd been here but knew for a fact that he was a long way away from losing his mind. He'd find out the secrets of the sword if it killed him. The sword gave a positive hum.

"OK, that sounded like a yes." Percy said, grabbing the sword and heading outside. "So how do I free you? I'm assuming that you're a person or beast inside my sword, or that you are the sword itself." Percy said as he began to spin the blade, always thinking about the possibilities of it all. How was it that Chronos had been able to bring a second being with him? Was it because they were trapped inside the sword. Trapped, being the operative word there.

"If I ask you nicely will you come out?" The sword hummed depressively. No, it was definitely trapped in there. There was no choice in the matter, at least not yet.

"Maybe I'm just not asking the right questions. But I guess it will have to wait for now, I'm not sure how to free you. But you're serving me just as well as my sword rather than as the person you are. I hope I'm doing the right thing by keeping you here and not taking you to Hephaestus." Percy grumbled slightly before getting on with the days training regime. Starting with one thousand push ups.

Days and days of trading went on with Percy rigorously breaking himself down time and again, occasionally hiking into the local settlement to get some food to enjoy after a big training day, but today he was stuck trying to best his record for the gauntlet he'd built to utterly test himself against his skills.

"Again!" Percy shouted. He wouldn't give up until he succeeded. He'd spent the last few years perfecting this training tool, he was determined to overcome it completely. No mere mortal could ever complete such a obliterating regime, but Percy was neither mortal or mere in any aspect. He reset everything manually which only served to tire his muscles even further but he didn't care, he was going to keep at it until he died or succeeded. Percy's black sword hummed in agreement.

"Good, I'm glad you think so." Percy grinned as he started up at the beginning of his brutal self-punishment of sorts. On his own mark he pulled a lever which activated a set of whirring and creaking wooden pulleys that acted as a finely tuned timer. Once it reached a certain point a set of the challenges would become ready to activate. Once Percy got to the beginning of those challenges, he would pull another lever that released a weight that stopped his timer and it would continue to make the challenge after his current one available. Percy knew what he was doing but he truly had created a devious gauntlet.

"Let's do this!" He shouted as a personal battle cry to get his blood going once again. He had become a central point of interest for the Gods over the years. They'd found him fascinating and couldn't help but wonder how strong he was going to be when his mission finished if he'd made this much progress in only a few years.

The first lever went up and the moment Percy ran on a single elevated wooden beam he jumped and spun mid-air so as to avoid a vertical guillotine that would surely have hurt him a lot. With the blessing of Hades which Percy was now certain the God hadn't the power to give, he wouldn't have suffered any fatal damage at the hands of the guillotine anyway, but it most certainly would have hurt. A lot.

Landing on one foot perfectly balanced on the other side of the wooden beam he continued to run until his neck started to tingle. The fine hairs had been tinged by something. Instinctively he turned and splayed his hands outwards, his sword still in one hand. A ball of water had erupted outwards from Percy himself and continued to go until it had extinguished the entire burning frame that had triggered.

He'd only just begun but his toughest challenge awaited him yet, the impending wall that had no hand holds at all. His plan was simple, to get a boost then use his sword to shimmy to the top. He couldn't afford to lose momentum though or he would fall yet again. He ran at full speed before using the blessing of Zeus to thrust him upwards.

He had small control over the winds and could quite easily use it to elevate him an amount of the way up the wall. As his days grew longer and he rested from his trials, he found that the more he used his minute powers such as these, the more they were growing and the further he was able to push himself.

That was good, he managed to plant his feet on the twenty foot mark. He kept using his small influence over the wind to keep him going straight upwards as he swiped his blade into the wall before removing it and doing it all over again at ridiculously fast speeds. A few seconds later and he had successfully scrambled his way to the top and stabbed his sword proudly in the fifty foot mark before pulling it and himself up and over the top of his worst enemy for the past few months.

On the other side was a pool of water, it was a shallow pool of water but it wasn't intended to soften his landing any. The immortal fell gracefully before turning in mid-air. Halfway down the water boomed out of its resting place to meet Percy's falling form. He used it even further than he thought he would as it turned into a speeding wave before launching him the rest of the length of the pool.

Percy landed boots side up before turning back and flipping his middle finger up at what he'd come to name the 'Wall of Zeus' before thunder rumbled overhead. He quickly bowed in the direction of Olympus to appease the man himself before turning back to the rest of his gauntlet.

"Let's see how far across we can get now then hey?" He looked at his blade. It came alive with a gratifying hum which made Percy smirk. "That's what I thought." He said, giving it a spin for dramatic effect. Percy broke into another sprint. This time he was running into a closed off arena with a domed roof. The arena's door shut on him, causing darkness all around him. In the ceiling of the roof was a single hatch with a ladder hanging down from it, providing partial light.

"Alright Hephaestus, let's see what your best automatons can do." Percy grinned, his attitude had changed. He was long gone from being the nervous boy from Camp Half-Blood. He was even further from being the cold and cautious hunter that aided Artemis. Perseus Jackson was the strongest immortal Demigod in history and he planned to let history know it.

The creaking of metal against metal told his senses that he was surrounded by early prototypes of the automatons that he'd fought with so many times in the past. "OK let's see what you've got, light us up." Percy said out loud. The black blade hummed happily before it cast a shallow light over everything, the illumination was a heavily taxing spell for a black object as it was creating and sourcing light of its natural opposite, but Percy had found that as he had gotten stronger, so had the blade, and that was something that he liked the most.

The arena had a faint shine to it and Percy could clearly see the black light reflect from the celestial bronze automatons. One with four legs scuttled forwards extremely fast. Percy back-stepped twice to get enough room between him and the slicing arms before he kneeled and swiped once with the black sword. The automaton crumpled into a heap of whirring gears and plates of celestial bronze that crunched against one another.

"Who's next?" Percy asked but he heard a scream outside of the arena somewhere. He immediately thought it odd that someone would be so close to his home but scolded himself for not looking into it sooner. "Automatons. Repair sequence initiate, exercise over!" Percy demanded. The doors opened and light flooded in. Percy jumped straight for the ladder and rocketed on top of the arena dome. He could clearly see the stretch of land between himself and his home half a mile in the distance. A woman was running frantically around the building trying to get help. Chasing her were three giant birds that looked like they were bred to kill.

"Stymphalians." Percy growled. What the hell were they doing here? "You're far too close to Olympus to be here naturally, something has summoned you." He muttered to himself quietly. The black blade in his hand hummed violently, matching his expression perfectly. "Let's go." He told it as he turned into a huge wave of water and thundered across the plains between his home and his personal gauntlet. He covered the distance with ease and immediately turned back into his form outside the house. The woman ran up to him with terror in her eyes, she had cuts all over her body. "In the house, I'll take care of them." Percy told her as he rushed up to the doors and booted it open before pulling the door shut once again. He moved away from the house to get the attention of the man eating birds.

"Hello beasties." Percy grunted unhappily. He was just about to set his record for the training gauntlet when his happened, still he couldn't leave that vulnerable woman to fend for herself, especially against Stymphalians. The metal birds were only native to regions near Arcadia, this was not a natural hunting ground for them, not to mention that the whole place at the moment was half mountain and half desert. Still, he couldn't let them go unchecked or they might end up wrecking the local settlement.

The three birds screeched in unisons before the first launched a volley of razor sharp metal feathers that all bounced harmlessly off of Percy's bare chest. He wore nothing topside because of the blazing heat whilst he was training. He could never get burned because of Hephaestus' blessing but his core body temperature could still rise with intense exercise.

Percy decided that while the razor sharp feathers couldn't harm him, he didn't particularly feel like having another round of them as it had in all fairness felt like each one was a heavyweight wrestler drop-kicking him in the chest. Maybe an overreaction but that was how he felt.

Percy held the black blade in his hand and had his revolver firmly in the other hand. He loved this combination and this was the first time since he'd arrived that he'd been able to kill something. The first bird came low for a swipe at the immortal with its bronze beak.

Percy ran to meet the challenge and jumped, using the bird's own body to rise and meet the other two. Using his small manipulation of the wind he turned his body upside down as he flew past the first of the bird. He unloaded a single round from his revolver into the skull of the first bird, the force of the weapon propelling him higher into the air long enough for him to turn and swipe the black blade across the body of the second Stymphalian that was looking at him with a murderous glare before turning to gold dust. He landed with a soft thud on the roof of his house before holstering his gun and keeping the black blade in sight.

The last remaining bird was looking wearily at the black blade like it had just insulted it, which it could well have done. Percy glanced down and noticed that the blade was indeed humming rapidly, like letting off a long list of insults. "You done?" He asked the blade, bringing it up to his face until he saw his own reflection in it. The blade hummed happily before they got back into focus.

The last bird screeched before letting off an unrelenting volley of metal feathers. Percy laughed at the feeble last ditch effort. He concentrated on his power of the winds before spinning and slicing his blade perfectly across the centre of an incoming feather. It ricochet precisely where he'd wanted it to go and sliced right through the last Stymphalian bird's neck.

All three birds had been turned to dust and now the only thing left to do was to see if the scared woman was alright. Percy jumped down from his own roof and knocked on the door. "It's ok you can come out now." Percy told her carefully. The door burst open and the woman grabbed Percy in her arms.

"Oh thank you Perseus, how can I ever repay you!?" The woman asked frantically. Percy hadn't told her his name. It was only then that Percy noticed how naturally beautiful she was.

"You're no mere mortal." Percy sighed. Aphrodite pouted and put her hands on her hips before turning back into her godly form. She looked annoyed by no small means.

"What gave me away?" She asked sourly. Percy couldn't help but laugh at that. He could list a number of things but the most prominent was the fact that she'd called him Perseus.

"I never told you my name. You ran out of the house and said 'Oh thank you Perseus.' It might help not to give away a key thing like that. That plus the fact that I now know your scent. You might be able to change your appearance but I've got you now." Percy laughed once again before turning back towards his gauntlet before he realised that she'd just ruined his first successful attempt.

"Now I'll have to try that again tomorrow." He grumbled before walking back towards his training grounds, already knowing that he wasn't going to get a time anywhere near as good as he was about to. His attempt at ignoring the Goddess had worked as she was visibly annoyed with how cool he'd been about it.

"Don't you even want to know how I got those birds?" She asked desperately, following him out of the house and down the side of the courtyard to where Percy was already walking towards his training grounds.

"I know what I need to know. They're called Stymphalians and they're winged metal assholes. Not tremendously hard to kill if you've got a weapon like mine, especially in an age where metal isn't really a big thing." He admitted. He wondered just how much he would have to wait before everyone else started to catch up to him especially as he wasn't up to date on his history.

"I just wanted to get your attention, is that so bad?" Aphrodite huffed, pouting as she did so.

Percy stopped for a minute and slightly turned on his heel, "Aren't you married to the smith?" He asked her with a raised brow. He knew that this was one of those points where he could potentially fuck everything up if he wasn't careful. It was always the case that Aprhodite was going to be unfaithful to Hephaestus, but it needed to be Ares that started that journey with her as it had always been.

"Well you're no fun." She huffed again before vanishing in a puff of pink sparkles, left in her place was a slender woman with long blonde hair. He knew that she was no ordinary mortal as she was far too clean to be a part of the tribes that hadn't quite settled in the land yet, and the local settlement to the East of him didn't have women quite so beautiful, nor would she have managed to sneak up on him, no, this woman had arrived as Aprhodite had left.

"Good day." He nodded, standing patiently to see what she wanted with him. He watched as she adjusted her immaculate white robes ever so slightly. They were quite form fitting and showed a lot of her figure.

"You walk a dangerously thin line. I wholeheartedly advise you be selective of how you respond. Now, who are you?" She asked him. Her tone was neutral and she even had the slightest hint of a smile on show but her words were full of threat.

"Does it matter? If I didn't already know who you were then telling you who I am would break the balance, and I'm pretty good at this whole balancing thing right now." He responded with a playful grin.

"You make jest in the face of a Moirai?" She asked, tilting her head slightly.

"Apologies, you're only the third person to come and see me in my time here so I try to make the most of every conversation, the tribes to the East don't talk much and what they can say is pretty limited in intelligence truth be told, but you, I can really get a conversation going with you." He smiled good naturedly. He wasn't sure quite how this woman would take that at any rate but he was willing to try and be on good terms with her.

"You've done well to remain neutral in your time, it's delayed my finding you but you do not belong here, tell me your reasons and I'll consider an appropriate action." She responded after she listened to his words.

Percy scratched the back of his neck whilst figuring out the best words to sum up exactly why he was here. "Well, my name is Perseus, my star sign is a Leo, and I like long walks in the..." He looked around for a moment, "Desert. Look, sister of Fate, I'm just here to train to become strong enough to fight a threat in my time that none of us are prepared for. You can control the strings of fate, I'm fairly confident that if you really wanted to you could look at my fate and see everything that I've done and will go on to do." He told her, he had to quickly amend his jokey statement after he realized that this woman did NOT understand his dating profile joke.

"Immortals are often harder to read their threads but yours is impossible. I'm not even sure that we could cut it if we wanted to… I am Clotho, and while you are here I will be keeping a very close eye on you to make sure that you do not mess with the balance because if you do you'll soon find that we will try everything in our power to return you to your own time or give you a spot in the ground to rest forever." She smiled once she'd said everything she needed to.

"How close? Should I cover up when I'm washing myself or would you be into that?" He grinned. She glared at him for a moment before vanishing much like Aphrodite had only minutes prior.

When she was gone his black sword had given off a disapproving hum. "What? I can't even romance one of the Fates now?" He asked the sword incredulously to which he received yet another hum much like the first one.

"Why not? She's gorgeous, it's been three years with no action and at this rate Aphrodite is only going to try that much harder. You can only say no to the Goddess of Love so many times." Percy told the blade seriously with a grin of mischief making it's way onto his face soon after.

The blade hummed almost violently, "Yeah, I know she'd not actually asked me yet but I know what she's like… You might well know what she's like as well." He whispered the last bit as he raised the sword up so that he could see his reflection in the immaculate edge of the blade.

"Every day you seem more familiar than the last, I'm sure that we've met before, and very possibly on good terms… It'll be awkward if you're Kronos or someone… If that's what it is then… Sorry for killing you Gramps but you deserved it." Percy shrugged.

The blade hummed like he'd greatly offended it. "Not Kronos? Oh good, for a moment there I was slightly worried. It'd definitely be an awkward reunion if I ever managed to open this blade up." He laughed slightly.

"Let's call it a day for now. Killing a few Stymphallians has put a downer on my mood." He sighed before holstering the black blade and walking back towards his house. It was only a few minutes before he'd come strolling back through the door but in the instance that he had he noticed that something was off.

There was the faintest air of reality changing around the room, the kind of feeling that he'd gotten when he last met Chronos. That was when he noticed the tattered leather book on the floor. "Pretty sure no one has figured out how to make scrolls or write yet, let alone form perfectly good leatherworks." He noted out loud before crouching to pick it up.

The moment he touched it a faint blue wisp of energy ran along his hand before dissipating. That was definitely Chronos' handiwork, but why use his limited strength to put a book in Percy's house?

As he opened it he saw that it was just a list of dates and garbled words, almost like it was forming a badly made time-line checklist. "This might be handy if I had the faintest idea what I'm supposed to do with this." He laughed as he flicked through the pages.

"Thanks Athena, I know what the Messenian war is but am I really supposed to go and fight?" He pondered quietly, he didn't want to accidentally alert the current Athena to his plight, not that speaking quietly was likely to stop anything as he was sure there were all still watching him quite closely.

"Jason, Odysseus, Theseus, even Jerkules is here. This is taking the piss a little bit." He yawned ever so slightly, the words starting to melt in his mind as he absorbed as much of it as he could bring himself to.

"Ooh, what's this?" He asked, looking at a page that had a single date and word on it. "_Six hundred and fifty six common era… Grimnir."_ The black blade hummed unhelpfully, clearly whoever was in the sword also had just as little knowledge about whatever that was. "Is that a person or a place? I have no idea what Grimnir is… Kinda sounds like an end of the world doomsday location." He muttered.

_Grimnir. _No matter how hard he tried to think of whatever that was, his extended knowledge and blessing of Athena was handing him nothing, he just kept drawing blanks.

"Grimnir." He said, rolling it around his tongue. He knew that this was likely to bug the absolute Hades out of him for quite a while. "Nope." He announced after another minute of silence, "No idea at all. Let's see what's first. Perhaps this actually is just a list of events that the Gods want me to have a presence in." He said, flicking back to the front of the book.

"There's a foreword… That's weird." He had to strain his eyes to properly read it as it was the worst case of cursive he'd ever had to try and read, "_Perseus, a little something so that you don't get lost. Please keep the natural order. - Chaos." _It took a moment for the whole thing to sink in. Chaos?

"Wasn't that the other Primordial with Chronos when this crazy plan began? Nice of her to give me a cheat sheet. Maybe it'll go off like an alarm clock if I forget about an event." Percy laughed to himself. He realized that he'd been doing that far more than he probably should. Maybe the company of the Gods wouldn't be such a bad thing after all.

Perhaps a trip up Olympus to at the very least speak to them, maybe individually if they were all off doing their own thing. At the bare minimum he could have a rather engaging conversation with Artemis or Athena and not feel himself going insane.

"Artemis or Athena… Didn't Artemis and Apollo only come around much later than this?" He said wide eyed. They shouldn't have been around at this time. After he'd said that, he felt that same energy engulf the book for no more than a second. When he looked down he saw the words in the footnote changing.

"_Certain very select aspects of history have been placed further back to facilitate the greatest results in your journey._" Percy just stared at the book after reading the new note.

"That is creepy, it's like a Tom Riddle's diary all over again." He laughed before staring at it, "Don't try to kill me, I'm stronger than you… Book." He told it before finally getting around to folding over the first page.

"'_Sixteen eighty two before common era, release Hechatonkaires from Tartarus.'… _And that's the first thing on the list? Not a tall order at all." He stood with a sigh, throwing the book into the corner of the room.

"I've only got about a thousand years to go then. Olympus is definitely not a bad shout." He decided. After some time had passed where he'd decided to rest up and cleanse himself of the days grime, he ventured back out of his house and made a beeline for the foothills surrounding Olympus.

He wondered just how fast he could actually scale Olympus on foot with no aid from self sustained waves. He didn't get very far before he noticed the hulking frame of a robed God coming his way. It was obvious from a distance who it was considering every single mortal he'd met in the past three years looked like they were allergic to forming muscles, but the fact that there were balls of fire in the eye sockets of this particular being only made it more obvious that it was Ares that was coming towards him.

"And what exactly can I do for you today, War God?" He asked. His voice projected over the desert plains with a powerful volume that easily reached the God in the distance.

"I wish to test your strength. The other Gods think you could well be stronger than us, which I struggle to believe." He responded, pulling a sword and shield seemingly out of thin air.

Percy had always wondered quite what the extent of Ares' powers would be as he'd never really demonstrated quite to any extent in the modern age.

"Of course they do." Percy muttered under his breath, cursing the inquisitive nature of those very same Gods, but on the other hand this could be good, this could turn into quite an exciting fight.

Percy knew that the modern Ares had slacked from his prime, he'd fallen in strength massively after his peak in the World Wars and in the modern age Percy was more than likely strong enough to put the War God on his hind, but this was a fresh young eager God of War that was likely to be quite powerful despite the fact that his worship would only have come from warring primitive tribes and that of Olympus and Othrys itself.

"Fine, I suppose, but I might accidentally kill you if I use my own sword." He announced as the two of them got closer. Percy could see the excitement of such a prospect in Ares' eyes however even a God like him wasn't about to run that kind of risk, especially not in the hands of a man in Percy's unique position.

"Fine by me, but now's probably a good time to give you the ugly mug's present." Ares laughed slightly before whistling incredibly loudly. Percy watched on as what looked like a comet launched from the peak of Olympus in the vast distance and arched in the sky before coming back down right next to where they were standing.

Once the breeze of heat and the dust had finally cleared, Percy saw a beautiful dark ashed, presumably iron, spear stuck in the desert rock. It was adorned with a gold inlay in the very centre of the blade. Funny, he was sure that he'd seen this particular spear before somewhere.

"This is some wicked craftsmanship." Percy smiled to himself as he pulled it free from the rock, "Totally calling this the spear of Longinus." He laughed to himself quietly as he spun the spear around his hands skilfully much to the dismay of the War God who was sure that this would be the first time that the boy would have ever seen a spear like this.

"Hephaestus made it with a new celestial metal that we found. We're calling it gold, it's strong enough to even hurt Gods, so now we can tell whether or not you're as strong as us." Ares grinned before closing the distance between them, making it entirely clear that the time for talk was far over, now was the time to fight.

Ares came in hard with a high strike with his sword that Percy swiped away with the edge of his spear. The God of War saw the trajectory of Percy's spear and managed to bring his shield up to cover most of his upper body but the younger immortal was much much faster and had already spun on his heels, slamming the blunt metal capped end of his new spear into the cap of Ares' shield with so much force that the God was lifted off of his feet and blown back by at least twenty feet.

"You're strong, really strong, of that there's no doubt, but I'm yet to see strength more than a God, let me show you!" Ares bellowed, throwing his hands to the sky, the weapons either side changing to form a massive hammer that sat comfortably between both of his hands as he brought it back down to the earth. He slammed the weapon into the ground, shaking everything beneath their feet as he did so.

"You think you're strong because you can make the ground shake a little? Watch this, _punk._" Percy's face lit up in a brilliant grin. The black blade across his back hummed in absolute agreement.

Without missing a beat, Percy lifted a leg and slammed his heel down into the ground. The world around them violently shook for a few long seconds. Ares was forced off his feet once again, crumbling underneath the weight of his summoned hammer as his vision rattled around like he was stuck in a roll-cage of death.

The few Gods that were currently present on Olympus had been forced to leave their home to either investigate what had caused the earthquake or to simply evacuate the crumbling temple atop the mountain.

Admittedly, Percy hadn't meant to use quite that much power but he didn't really have much choice not to either, Ares was being too cocky and needed a lesson in humility.

"Something that you're very quickly going to come to understand is that I am above and beyond someone like yourself who hasn't yet faced half of the hardest trials of your so far short life." Percy lectured as Ares got back onto his feet, ragged breath as he once again picked up his hammer and made another mad dash to try and strike out against the immortal in front of him.

Percy moved in and ducked under Ares' swing before pushing upwards and slamming the blunt end of the spear into Ares' chin, keeping his momentum high he spun and slashed out the sharp edges of the spear at the inside of the War God's right knee, bringing him back down to the ground only moments after he'd gotten back up.

Percy let Ares catch his breath but from the looks of things, the War God was quite content with the short fight they'd shared. "I could escalate things and turn into my full God form but I'm pretty sure this fight will just continue at the same pace. Yeah, you're strong kid, I'll happily fight alongside you. One thing though, what's a punk?" Ares asked, clambering back up to his feet despite the torn ligaments in his knee. This War God was tougher than many gave him credit for.

Percy couldn't help but smile, thinking he was about to turn a part of his childhood on it's head. "A punk is someone that's not quite as strong as you but you still respect them despite that, at least that's what it means right now." Ares couldn't help but adorn a smile of his own.

"I'll remember that, and one day I'm sure you'll know that I'm calling YOU the punk." He laughed before vanishing, presumably to return to the temple upon Olympus.

Percy had expected that particular fight to last a lot longer but it seemed that the Ares of the past was seemingly a bit more level headed and grounded with logic, hence already knowing how the fight was going to end, but that may well also just have been Ares as a younger God.

He could have at least given Percy an impromptu express lift to the top of Olympus and shortened his travel time considerably but perhaps that would have seemed more like adding insult to injury.

"So, what do you think of this bad boy? It's only iron, or maybe what we'll come to know as stygian iron, and definitely some olympic gold." He stood analysing his new armament. There definitely wasn't a weapon quite like this in the modern age which meant that at some point or another he was bound or destined to lose his spear, which annoyed him as it was a blade that had drawn first blood against Ares of all people.

"Yeah, my thoughts exactly. Let's go and make an appearance on Olympus. I've already seen two Gods and a fate today, I might as well make a round trip of it." Percy told the black blade before starting his journey.

A few hours later and he was arriving at the precipice of Mount Olympus, the grand temple of the Gods sitting comfortably in the not so distant distance. Standing ina grand white robe that revealed more of her body that he was used to seeing was Athena. Out of everyone he expected that Aphrodite would be the one to wear the robes that were barely classifiable as robes, but the wisdom Goddess in front of him wasn't afraid to show the young immortal her tanned skin and curvaceous figure.

"Perseus, I've been waiting for you." Athena announced with a beautiful smile. He couldn't help but notice just how different she looked from modern age, which was nice because in the modern age she looked far too similar to Annabeth which would have stung if he'd not have been completely over that by now.

"I assumed you would be as someone isn't going to make their way up here for another five thousand odd years." Percy replied with his own smile.

"I was wondering how long it was going to take you to come back to our home of your own accord. The politics of Olympus go on each day in much the same way and things are never quite as exciting as when you are brought into the frame." She told him, turning heel and starting to walk towards the temple, falling into step perfectly with Percy as they walked together. It must have been quite the sight.

"It's only been a few years, I'll be here for the next five thousand of them, are people missing me already?" Percy grinned, knowing that Athena of all people should respond with something that would entertain him.

"Only a few years and already in just the space of today have you garnered the attention of a love Goddess, gotten a War God jealous of said attention to the point he's tried to fight you, and earned the respect of Hephaestus for batting Aphrodite's intentions away, then proceeded to show up Ares with a weapon made by Hephaestus for your indifference to his wife." Athena replied without missing a beat.

"And the Fate that came to visit me, don't forget about her. Pretty sure she fancies me. She told me she was going to be watching me super closely, never specified whether that meant during my washing routine or not." Percy mused, enjoying the reaction on Athena's face. She clearly wasn't sure whether or not Percy was being serious but after the other antics of the day that followed the young immortal it was clearly not entirely out of the question.

"I'm not sure how to respond to that but I'm also sure that on the grand scheme it matters not. Come Perseus, I have a few things that I wanted to discuss with you in private away from the prying eyes of the others." She announced, putting her hand on his shoulder and taking them both away before he could argue against it.

He was always fine if he knew that he was about to travel that way but whenever it happened unexpectedly it always made him feel hugely queasy.

"Athena, what exactly am I looking at?" He asked, starting to recognize the symbols etched into the earth. This was clearly something Athena had been keeping hidden away.

"I've invented some way to, to… WRITE! To write the words we speak!" Athena announced, looking down at her alphabet with pride in her eyes.

"I mean you're not wrong, my brain is hardwired to understand these symbols because they're what I know as ancient Greek. I thought this was going to be something that was going to get me into trouble." Percy admitted, letting his mind wander ever so slightly.

"Who says we can't still get into some trouble?" Athena asked, raising a single brow.

Percy was too smart to not understand what she was talking about, and on a single whim, he decided to take that bait and bite.

"Oh yeah, what did you have in mind?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3 – Modern Day Cowboy**

**The Present**

The Olympians were meeting for the third time in only a few days as they each tried their best to source the location of the most long awaited arrival that they would collectively share. Between the lot of them they kept coming up empty handed, but now was the time for them to keep searching, after all, this was when he was supposed to return to them.

Two days gone past and nothing, he was never late to anything, so why now? When his journey the long way around was ending and he was finally able to jump right back into another war.

Artemis sighed in her throne, rubbing her temples ever so slightly. "Do you think..." She began to say. All eyes slowly made their way to her to see what she had to say. "Do you think that maybe we're all overthinking this? Maybe because this is the longest amount of time we've ever gone without seeing him?" She asked, looking around the room.

"When was the last time you saw him?" Zeus asked, weighing this up in his mind. It could well be the case, he knew that he personally hadn't seen him for longer than he could really remember. He never noted how long Percy's visits were as it never occurred to Zeus that there would ever be LAST time that he would show his face before returning for good.

"Maybe something just over sixty years ago?" She pondered out loud, trying her best to answer the question. She too never really took notice of the frequency of Percy's visits before he'd been gone for that long.

"It's about the same for me. Anyone seen him since?" Athena asked, looking on as the other Olympians tried to rack their brains.

"Yeah." Ares answered slowly with a frown on his face, "I know I have I just can't…" He scratched his chin for a moment as it slowly started coming back to him. "That's right, I met him back in seventy five, in the end days of the Vietnamese war. Saigon, he ended up partially killing me." Ares chuckled deeply at the memory.

"It's odd that you find it funny." Poseidon mused.

"It was a funny story, even for me. He was fighting for the people's army, and I was there fighting with the southern Vietnamese army. We met on the battlefield as you can imagine, he explained that this was a fixed event and that his side needed to win, then you know what he did? You'll love this, he punched me so hard that my heart almost stopped, and he didn't even go out of his way to try to do that. He's become some next level powerful, and that was what, almost forty years ago? Little bastard." Ares laughed once more as the other Olympians slowly absorbed his story.

"Moving past how no one else knows about that, shall we get back to trying to find him?" Apollo asked, eager to get them back on track. Before anyone else could say anything, the throne room started to rumble, gently at first but then it became vastly more violent as it grew stronger and stronger. The last time any of them had felt something as nauseating as this was when Chronos first took Percy, they all seemed to remember the past events, all at once in a near blackout state before they all managed to regain their senses. It was a good thing they were all firmly sat in their thrones or they might have suffered real damage just from that synchronization of memory.

Artemis sat forwards in a wide eyed panic, not knowing quite what to do with herself. There was no mistaking it, the sheer pressure was only coming from one person. "He's here." She stated.

The throne room doors slowly opened to reveal a tall cloaked man. Just beneath the drape of the thick black hood they could see nothing amidst darkness save for two vibrantly shining emerald eyes looking out at them.

"I'm very pleased to finally see you full circle, my son, but is there any way for you to tone it down a notch?" Poseidon asked, visibly uncomfortable from the rolling waves of destructive energy that seemed to be emanating from his son.

"Hmm?" Percy hummed slightly, not really understanding at first what he was talking about. He looking around himself ever so slightly before taking a deep breath and focusing on himself. A few seconds had passed before Olympus stopped thundering with his sheer presence.

"I'd say your plan worked." Ares said, looking on at the monstrously strong immortal in front of them. "Now I see how you almost served me up to Tartarus with one punch." The God of War said in astonishment as he even went so far as to remove his cool black shades so that he could properly look at the man in front of them.

"Kept you waiting, huh?" He asked, pulling his hood down so that they call all see his face. He was more interested in taking in the throne room in front of him. He'd been stood here in this very same room thousands of years ago before his life, his strange wacky Demigod life, had changed entirely.

"Come forwards Percy." Zeus told him. Percy removed the rest of the itchy looking cloak as he readjusted himself to what was happening. This was finally it, the day he'd been eagerly waiting five thousand years for, and after all that, he truly did not know what else to say to them. It'd been years since he'd seen them all last, some more than others as he heard Ares referencing their brief encounter in Vietnam.

"Tell me," Zeus began as he leaned forwards ever so slightly, "After all your many years training, were you able to bring us to the point where we can fight this coming war?" Zeus asked, friendlier than he had been in his previous time.

It took him a moment to find the right words to answer. "In all my years, I kept history the same, however I managed to stop the Greeks and the Romans from totally hating one another. The Byzantines though? Gods we hate them now, whoops." Percy shrugged slightly with a slight smile.

"I began to reach an Olympian level of strength after only a few years training, and now this far down the line, I'm confident that when the time comes I can end this war at the right time." He told them all, reading their reactions. Perhaps they expected someone more solid after he'd trained for so long but he knew things that they didn't. He knew that no matter what happened that HE would show up in the final fight, and there was every chance that he could die in their final fight.

"I should probably don something more comfortable if we are to stand around this long talking about the past five thousand years." He effortlessly waved his hand over his clothes and they disappeared revealing his almost impossibly lean body. There must have been less than one percent body fat on the man. His clothes were quickly replaced by a finely tailored suit, no doubt a courtesy of Aphrodite herself.

All the Gods were naturally drawn to something they'd briefly seen on his body. Two separate tattoos, neither of which were at all faded, and both placed across his chest. Percy had dressed himself far too fast for them to really get a good look but one of them looked a LOT like an SPQR tattoo, which wouldn't have come as a surprise as he had technically lived as a Roman for the duration of the empire, from the days of Romulus and Remus no less.

"Much better. Now, we've a lot to discuss don't we? Well, you can all remember clearly the times where I came to Olympus wherever it was at the time to give you my report every time you requested updated. You are aware that I prevented the Greeks and Romans from going too far with their acts of war, thought it should be made clear that the Demigods are still unaware of each other as per your requests but they do have their suspicions. You did not bear stupid children." Percy mused. Hera looked smug at this news, she knew that her plan would in theory work, but she never had to place so much faith in someone like Percy before. If there was ever going to be someone that she COULD have faith like that in, then it was Percy.

"What else? Oh yeah, Chaos, the pretty one that Chronos came here with, sent me a book of important dates and then every now and then it would tell me where I needed to be. Let me tell you all something, I have never met anyone or anything as stubborn as that asshole Grimnir. That was a painful day." Percy groaned, subconsciously rubbing his face where he survived possibly the closest thing to a grave wound in his life. It resulted in a friend of his nursing him back to health over the course of several days.

"What the Hades is a Grimnir?" Apollo asked incredulously.

Percy looked at him in a matching expression though with a splash of anger thrown in, "That's what I said!" He exasperated, "Be glad that you won't ever need to find out." Percy stated, regaining his composure.

"So aside from that, I've been participating in the shadows for nearly every single main event in our history, but it seems that more than that, that lady called Chaos had an actual plan in mind for me. Look at what that book put on my chest." He said, pulling his shirt to one side to reveal one of the tattoos.

_Molon Labe _it read.

"Been a VERY long time since I last heard that." Ares said with a reminiscing smile. It was an old and cherished memory for the war God.

"Care to explain?" Dionysus piped up.

"It means; come and take." Percy answered him, putting his shirt back over his chest, doing the buttons up as he went.

"It was shouted at the hot gates of Thermopylae by the Spartan king Leonidas." Ares told them, earning a hard glare from Percy as he did.

"I was the one who shouted that, hence why I was branded with it right above my heart. On that day I became the last Spartan, as such was the way I was recognized for nearly the rest of my time back then." Percy corrected the War God.

"The Last Spartan, that makes an irritating amount of sense when you look at how many of our records have that embedded into them." Athena spoke up, only now realizing quite how ingrained he was into absolutely everything.

"Well, I'm glad that you've been having so much fun over the past five millennia, but now it's time to work." Zeus interrupted. It was insightful seeing how much he'd done with his time, but they were starting to ironically run out of time.

"I'd be appreciative if you could go to camp Jupiter right away. The boy, Jason Grace is already on his way to camp Half-Blood." Zeus told Percy. Percy did a double take, did he just say Grace? Surely Zeus of all people hadn't gone back to the same woman twice and had a child with her both times?

"Excuse me, but did you just say Grace?" Percy asked immediately, unable to keep his mind off of the possibilities of what that might have meant. He stopped halfway out of the throne room, turning back to look at Zeus who nodded. Percy couldn't believe it, he too let out a slight nod before leaving, only quickly glancing at Aphrodite on his way out.

Once outside of the throne room he turned into a sea breeze before leaving Olympus to go and find Camp Jupiter, where he had to act Roman. No problem, he had about a thousand years worth of practice, not to mention SPQR tattooed across his chest, that was sure to garner a few trusting faces if nothing else worked.

Percy was sat in the pavilion of Olympus. Soon he would have to depart for camp Jupiter and act like another refuge. He could pull it off, he was only nineteen when he was made immortal and he still looked young.

The hardest part for him would be to not blow it all over his head and reveal himself to not only be Greek, but over five millennia old. Percy's black blade hummed cheerfully.

"Oh don't you start as well. It's bad enough that I'm actually doing this but what's worse is that you'll have to stay as a sword for at least the first couple of weeks. I can't have you unleashed in a camp full of hateful Romans. I know we did wonders for the peace between Greece and Rome over the years but we couldn't exactly stop certain events from happening entirely could we?" Percy asked before looking at his sword for an answer. In five thousand years he'd been able to detect the hums and vibrations of the sword very well and could easily interpret them into an accurate translation. The sword hummed gloomily. It didn't want to have to be stuck like that for extended periods of time.

"I'm sorry, but until we can sort this thing out that's just the way it's going to be. Unless I rise through the ranks ridiculously fast and gain my own private quarters, then maybe we can let you free each night." Percy spoke up. This time the blade hummed very happily at this.

"Yeah you're right. We'd better get going or we're going to end up being late for our own party." Percy chuckled lightly before clicking his fingers. He appeared outside an old bargain shopper's mega store. He was pretty pleased with the results of his near instant movement power. It was close to that of the Gods when they zipped around but not quite as on the ball, he'd figures it out literal ages ago but he was never quite that accurate with it.

Looking around he noticed a woman was holding a tray of free samples, moving towards him faster than someone should for the fact that it looked like her legs were still trying to walk at an ambling pace.

"Care for a sample?" She asked him sweetly enough. Percy could see right through this feeble attempt at a disguise. It was a Gorgon, luckily not Medusa, probably Stethnno, she wasn't ever the brightest of the bunch from what Percy remembered

"Those are all poison and really bad tofu. Do you seriously not recognize me?" Percy asked plainly. The woman's eyes widened before she turned to screech. He swung his black blade out of the scabbard and across her neck. The head rolled and reluctantly turned into dust before reforming thirty seconds later, still holding the tray.

"Silly Percy Jackson. The doors of death obey Gaia now, and she holds it open for all those who do her will. She wants you dead and that job is now mine. Free sample!?" She couldn't seem to change her tone and she couldn't seem to stop offering Percy free samples, but that was fine, he got the point.

Definitely Stethnno.

"Tell me, do you know what happens when you ignite monster dust in Greek fire?" He asked her but before she could respond, he heard the click of a nitrous round being loaded into the chamber of his gun. He aimed and fired one off at the Gorgon. The monster turned to dust and the nitrous and Greek fire concoction exploded her golden remains into a thousand sparkles of burning ash.

"Huh, so that's what happens." Percy nodded, "Not bad actually." He grinned before turning around. His destination was quite a few miles away, much more than he'd initially thought when he'd dropped down outside the mall. "What a moron I am." He said out loud.

"Well now we're starting to agree on things. I told you Jackson, you can't kill me for long." The Gorgon smiled evilly once again. "Oh, this brings back memories, finally a challenge that I can't defeat straight up. Interesting. Running it is, I hope you can keep up Gorgon." Percy grinned before breaking into a sprint and heading for the hills that held his next destination.

"Run, run, run, you can't catch me!" Percy shouted back to his pursuer with glee. He'd lost track of low long he'd been running for but he wasn't even breaking a sweat. The Gorgon on the other hand was struggling greatly with the task she'd been presented with. Frankly Percy found it quite disrespectful that Gaia would only send a Gorgon after him. The other one had joined in after some time and he'd since lost one much further back so he no longer had any idea which Gorgon was currently chasing him because they both tried to off their free samples on him, but it didn't greatly matter at this point, he was just leading them up a hill.

"Shut up!" The Gorgon screamed at him. He loved what he was doing for a living. Five thousand years on and he could toy around with Gorgons.

"What's up, can't catch the gingerbread man?" Percy chuckled before turning on his heel and releasing the power inside him. A wave erupted from his fingertips. He picked this precise moment because of their geometry. He'd been leading her up the side of the immense hilltop for at least half an hour now. The wave knocked her down and she lost all of her free samples.

"That should give me time enough to get to camp Jupiter." Percy said, seemingly to himself before his sword hummed happily in agreement.

"Yes I know, we're nearly there." Percy frowned. He hated having to keep the sword that way, it needed to be free. He found himself standing at a cliff edge. "Well, we've done this thousands of times." He grunted before walking over the edge and letting himself slide down the practically sheer edged cliff. One foot supported him and the other foot guided his path. He was basically surfing down a raw cliff edge.

Before he hit the bottom he jumped and used his influence over the wind to help him clear the fence that was put in place so that motorists didn't crash into the cliff and cause rocks to fall. He ran along the side of the road until he spotted an old lady sitting in a chair looking quite expired. Normally this would have been an incredibly odd sight especially as she was sat in the most unconventional looking ditch acting as a central reservation for this motorway.

"Oh there you are dear, say could you give an old lady some help?" She asked rather sweetly. Percy narrowed his eyes, no random old woman would be sitting by the side of the road waiting for an ancient immortal.

"Hera you have legs that work. Lift yourself up and stop insulting me." Percy told her before glancing back at the way he'd come. The Gorgons were starting to catch up. He didn't see how that was possible considering he'd just shunted one off of the side of a near mountain like hilltop.

"Juno actually. I'm helping you to fit into your role in camp Jupiter. If they see you going across the little Tiber carrying an old woman that turns into a Goddess in the middle of their camp they will no doubt accept you as one of their own. It will be up to you to succeed from there. The entrance is only a mile that way." Juno said cheerily as she hopped into Percy's outstretched arms.

The black blade hummed a little angrily at the Goddess in its master's arms. "I know, I know, don't lecture me about this as well." Percy grunted which didn't lesson the humming. When they finally got to the entrance there were two sentries posted on guard duty. A chubby Asian guy that looked as strong as an ox and a dark haired girl with a sad glint in her eye.

"State your business here." The man said in a threatening voice as he notched an arrow in his bow. He'd better be ready to have that thing shoved down his throat should fire on him, Percy thought to himself.

"Shoot me and I'll shove that bow up your ass." Percy threatened him so quickly that the guard visibly sweat, not knowing what to say in response. Percy realized that a real explanation probably would have been better.

"I'm carrying an increasingly heavy Goddess and I'm being chased by two Gorgons that won't stay dead." He said before glancing at the girl who looked away at his words. It seemed that it wasn't only Gorgons that weren't staying dead. This girl had seen a lot in her time. Percy felt a tinge of sympathy for her.

"Alright inside now. Let's go we've got Gorgons on our tail!" The big man started shouted. A few alarms went off inside the little tunnel.

Percy grunted as he forced himself onward. "Are you purposely making yourself heavier Juno?" Percy whispered quietly enough for only her to hear.

"I wondered how physically strong you are, is it so much to ask for me to find out without words?" The Goddess asked back with a humored laugh. Percy grunted yet again in response. The black blade buzzed angrily in agreement.

They all reached the exit to the tunnel and just in time as it had collapsed in behind them all unfortunately though the Gorgons had made it through to the other side as well.

Percy crossed the river and felt a pain flow through him like when he jumped into the river Styx in order to fight against Kronos all those years ago. He pushed onward and set the Goddess down on the bank on the other side of the river. The boy and girl that he'd met from the tunnel also came across. "This river is fucking painful!" He cursed as he waded back through it.

The pain quickly subsided and he was happy to see that he still had all of his blessings from the Gods. The two Gorgons quickly stepped into view. Romans were piling out of the encampment from all sides, still staying on their respective side.

Percy pulled out the black blade and his revolver. His choice of weaponry gained many hushed gasps from the Romans. He liked that, he'd set himself many legends over the years. Explaining himself without revealing to be THE Perseus Jackson was going to be difficult. The first Gorgon screeched to which Percy pulled the trigger on his revolver and caused her to explode all over the river. He willed the river to obey him and he kept the Gorgon's golden remains from reforming. The second Gorgon lunged and swiped at his chest but her hand just bounced off harmlessly. Percy drove his sword straight through the Gorgon's heart. "Do it!" He shouted at the blade. A second later the essence of the Gorgon was absorbed into the sword, making it glow bright white before returning to the regular black. Percy's sword was the only remaining weapon that was able to absorb he power of a fallen enemy if the wielder so chose to. Percy wouldn't usually do this, but with the doors of death allowing fallen monsters to return instantly, he was left with little choice. The Gorgon's golden dust remains fell through the air slowly before they turned black then into an ash grey before they disappeared completely.

The golden dust of the other Gorgon was desperately trying to reform but Percy was having none of it. "As a child of the sea I will you to never be reformed!" Percy shouted. This would take a lot of power even from someone like him. He rose into his god-like watery form, his features still easy to make out despite being made from solid water. His power caused the entire river to swell around him before pulsing the monster dust downstream and clear of the Roman camp. Percy returned to his normal state and left the river completely dry.

"Thank you for carrying me Percy Jackson." Juno said as she retained her human but godly appearance. More gasps went up. Percy faintly heard someone choke out his name. "Percy Jackson?" They said in disbelief. The Goddess disappeared and Percy had to focus on the one who'd said his name.

A leader of the Romans if Percy had ever seen one. She had beautiful features and long dark hair. He recognized her. She was on Circe's island, some five thousand years ago for Percy.

"Reyna. Things couldn't be easy could they?" Percy nodded at the typicality of it all. This wasn't good, the leader of the Romans and in his past Percy had burned down her home by accident.

"At least you have the decency to remember what you did." Reyna spat, confronting Percy in front of the gathered Romans. Percy's black blade hummed violently causing Reyna to take a step back. "Where in Hades did you get that? And that gun, they both belonged to…" Reyna stopped, her eyes wide as she regarded the ancient Demigod in front of her. In that single moment she realized that he was THE Perseus Jackson.

"Molon labe." Percy grinned sheepishly, unsure of whether or not Reyna would quite understand. It seemed that she knew enough about him to recognize not only the man he was from the past but the man he had become from the whole of history.

"Come, we've got a lot to talk about." She said, ushering him towards the great timber gates around the edge of the camp.

"Through here, quickly!" A few minutes later and Reyna was ushering him inside her private quarters in a tall building near the heart of the camp. A few orders were shouted around outside as the rest of the legion went back to doing whatever it was they had been up to before Percy came along and ruined the peace. He had a knack for that.

"What are you doing here?" Reyna asked him, her eyes piercing his own gaze. He knew that she would be able to pick the truth apart from the lies. That was when Percy noticed two dogs, one was gold and one silver.

"Aurem and Argentum. My automaton dogs are able to tell whether you're lying or not." Reyna added quickly, "And if you're lying they will proceed to kill you." She smiled sadistically as she sat down at the head of a long table. The two automaton dogs sat humbly at either side of her chair. This was just what Percy needed.

"Aurem and Argentum. Original, and they really probably won't be able to kill me. They're just automatons after all." Percy muttered briefly before he stepped closer but not to close, he had the feeling that no matter what he did, those dogs would try to take a bite mark out of him should he get too close to their mistress.

"So I'll ask again, what are you doing here? As I recall, you are not of Roman decent, especially if you own those weapons." Reyna began. Those words seemed to have formed the perfect question, one that allowed Percy to tell her exactly what he was doing.

"I wasn't born in Rome but I saw the entire empire, so I'm more Roman than you are." Percy grinned as he parted his shirt enough so that Reyna could see the bold tattoo across his chest. "SPQR, Legion of the Damned. How's that for being Roman?" He stared right at the dogs that didn't move an inch.

Reyna was stunned at their reaction and the fact that he was inked with an SPQR mark. "How is that at all possible though? I KNOW that you're Greek, like, I actually know that from when you burned down my home a few years ago." She asked him, looking on past her intertwined hands. He was a mystery that was for sure, but there seemed to be a layer of mysticism even deeper than the whole legend that surrounded the great Perseus Jackson.

"OK, I'll try to summarize. I was sent by Juno to come to earn the trust of the Romans. From my time, Greeks and Romans have never trusted each other so bear with me while I explain this. I was sent by the Primordial God of Time back to when Greece was first formed. I have lived the past five thousand years making sure that the conflicts between the Greeks and Romans remained at a necessary minimum so that we could fashion a peace between the two of us. Now I come for your aid in defeating Gaia and that bastard son of Tartarus." Percy spat at the last part of his sentence. He'd nearly cornered Tartarus' son in the Vietnam war before he disappeared and was never seen again, ironically where he also found Ares and almost killed him by accident.

While the dogs remained as passive as ever, Reyna struggled to take all of that in. "You're five thousand years old… OK then, so obviously you've been made immortal, but not a God otherwise you'd not be allowed to intervene with our affairs, so you're still a Demigod but by Jupiter, Percy you're ancient. You lived alone for five thousand years?" Reyna looked at him sadly and sympathetically to which Percy just shook his head.

"No, I had to restrict those legends about the great Perseus, son of Poseidon. I couldn't give away everything could I? My sword, the legendary black blade has a soul inside it." He announced casually as he slowly held the blade up to look at the beautiful black edge along the length. The dogs slowly looked up at Reyna who could do nothing but nod, everything he'd told her was the truth. It was almost too much for her to take in at once.

"Your sword is a person?" She asked, just to make sure that they were on the same level.

"Yeah, it has a soul, it can transform at will back into a human, or rather a strange looking immortal." He confirmed. The black blade hummed as if massively offended by Percy's words, which wasn't surprising.

Reyna stared in silence at Percy for the longest time since he'd arrived, "Ok I realize the dogs aren't saying anything but that is bullshit." She said at last, utterly unwilling to believe his story.

With a heavy sigh Percy held out the black blade in his hand before it glowed a bright white and formed a dazzling shape that molded until it formed a fully clothed human standing right in front of them. The woman that had been summoned from the sword was fairly tall, and unfairly beautiful. She had obsidian eyes that matched equally dark long flowing locks of silky hair that fell gracefully down her back. That was a face that Percy was never going to forget, even before their journey through time.

"Praetor of Rome. My name is Zoe Nightshade." She announced courteously. "I used to be an eternal huntress of Diana, before I died. Sometime later I was given a second chance at life and traveled throughout the ages with Perseus." She bowed slightly to the Praetor of New Rome. Reyna appreciated the show of respect that she had been given though she was entirely sure that it wasn't warranted considering just how old these two must have been.

"Percy." Percy grumbled slightly before looking back at Reyna.

"I have endured the Ancient Greek civilization. I have lived throughout the ages of Rome and by my count that makes me more of a Roman than anyone here. If we are to survive this war Reyna, then we need to be allies. Gaia is coming, and she has the most powerful Demigod to have ever lived fighting right by her side." Percy said with urgency thick in his voice. The dogs were on their feet and sizing up Percy, growling viciously.

"A part of what you just said was a lie." Reyna narrowed her eyes. Percy rolled his eyes, hoping to have gotten away with not having to be vain.

"OK, I lied. He isn't the most powerful Demigod. I am. He's close though." Percy told them. The dogs immediately stood down, seemingly happy with his correction. Reyna was shocked that he chose that as the part of his confession to have been a miss-truth. Percy was the most powerful Demigod in history, surely that was something to be proud of?

"OK, so who is this other Demigod? It can't be the Tartarus boy surely, how might that individual even be a nemesis to you throughout the ages? Immortals are forbidden from interfering with Demigod affairs." Reyna asked with confusion.

"Because the son of Tartarus was not mothered by Gaia or another immortal. He IS the Demigod I speak of. Tartarus had courted a mortal woman and I suspect that while Kronos remains destroyed in the bottom of Tartarus, that he was strengthened enough to send the boy back in my own slipstream through time." Percy pondered it, staring out of the window for a moment before he looked back to Reyna.

Zoe was watching the exchange with fascination. "That bastard is anywhere up to five millennia we've been playing a deadly game of cat and mouse for four thousand years. Each and every time we come close to capturing him he sends himself to the depths. Obviously he's immortal but not of God status. So once reformed, he will just keep coming back. Unless." Percy stopped before pointing towards Zoe, "I can take him down with the black blade. She has the ability to absorb the essence of fallen enemies equally between the wielder and the blade. I.E, over the many centuries of hunting down Gods and monsters, we have become extremely powerful." Percy smiled when the dogs were no longer even bothering to stand, they instead had chosen to lie down at Reyna's feet.

"That is fucking incredible." Was all she said, still staring at Percy.

"You have no idea the kind of shit I've done with my life." Percy grinned, knowing all too well that this was only the tip of the iceberg of his long life.

Reyna had no idea how to even go about questioning him after that so instead looked towards the newest person in the room. "So you're his what, very close partner?" Reyna raised an eyebrow as Zoe who seemed to pale slightly when she remembered that her dogs could tell when somebody was lying.

"I'm his companion. I'm not sure if you're trying to cloak your words to get a specific answer. There was a time back in Sparta that we were expected to be normal citizens but that's also none of your business." Zoe explained, folding her arms and standing like a rock. Those dogs were not going to be able to break her, like it or not.

"I should get to work. Gaea's forces are due to get here soon. I expect that things will turn into a battle between Demigods and monsters, and then either myself or the son of Tartarus will fall forever." Percy explained extremely calmly.

"How are you speaking so casually about something like that?" Reyna asked him in disbelief. She greatly admired the ancient Greek Demigod, one word for it was admiration, standing before her.

"Because I've lived a long and good life with my best friend. If I die, I will die a happy man. Oh, I'm also completely immortal and unless that Tartarus spawn has a weapon like mine, which he doesn't. Then I'll eventually reform. As soon as I drive this blade through his heart though, he will be dead and gone." Percy explained calmly. He truly was the most powerful Demigod to have ever existed.

"Will your presence here attract more monsters?" Reyna bit her lip subconsciously. She didn't want there to be an extra threat to her camp, she already had enough to worry about as the only Praetor of the camp.

"Technically no, realistically yes. It'll keep weaker monsters away but Gaea will eventually realize it's me and send way more monster. I've since revealed myself to this camp's leading authorities, that's you by the way, and thus I need no further reason to hide my power. Monsters have all left the area. They fear my power and rightly so. They will only come near me when they are being led by an army of Gaea's gigantes." Percy explained. Every so often he would accidentally go off into Greek, Latin and another language that she didn't understand.

"OK, I'll inform everyone of your plans. I would advice that you either stay here or in the spare Praetors quarters for now. I don't want you causing any problems among my people. I may be acceptant of your heritage but I know better than to challenge the Last Spartan. Those people do not know who you are. They may see it as their duty to take you on. The man who went toe to toe with Heracles an

proceeded to beat seven shades of shit out of him." Reyna had gazed off again. Percy decided that was his cue. He snapped his fingers with a grin.

"Huh?" she almost whimpered when he looked directly into her eyes.

"Gracias Renya, hasta la próxima vez hermosa." Percy told her without missing a beat. Reyna flushed furiously as a crimson shade engrossed her face at Percy's comment. Zoe's eyes got impossibly wide and she giggled like a schoolgirl.

As the ancient partners silently walked into the Praetors quarters that had been left vacant for quite some time, Zoe found that she simply couldn't hold it in any longer. "Oh my Gods, you called her beautiful! That's amazing!" Zoe burst out in pure glee.

"She had metal dogs that would try to eat me if I lied." Percy countered rather quickly. Seeing his already impending defeat at the hands of Zoe, yet he knew for a fact that he wasn't going down without a fight.

"That is not the point. You didn't have to call her beautiful. You haven't called anyone beautiful in about a thousand years." Zoe squealed with absolute joy in her eyes.

With a sigh Percy knew that he might as well admit it, "Yes, well she IS rather attractive." He said as he finally managed to get through the doorway without being bundled by the now hyperactive ex-hesperide. Unknown to either of them that Reyna had actually followed them back to the Praetor's quarters so that she could quickly ask them something, but she found this conversation to be that much better.

"Time to train Zoe." Percy said finally. Stretching skywards which resulted in some rather pleasurable sounding cracks as his bones extended outwards briefly.

"No, I don't wanna. We've trained solidly for five millennia. Go and talk to Reyna instead. The Gods know you need someone to love in your life besides me." Zoe quickly responded.

"We literally just left her, what in Hades would I say to her? The poor thing is probably still scarlet from my comment. I'd only make her feel more awkward." Percy sighed a deep breathe of yet another impending defeat, "If I promise that I'll talk to her about something not work related at some other point, will you please drop it for now and let us train?" Percy asked, but his voice was seemingly desperate at this point.

Silence. A muffled punch in the arm, "If you're lying to me Perseus Jackson, you shall feel my wrath!" Zoe's voice cut in. More impacts against soft skin were heard, "Ow, hey, quit it. Zoe!" Percy complained. More punches.

"You're being really hyper today, if you keep punching me I'm going to swat you back in a minute." Percy warned her playfully.

Reyna knew that this was her point to walk in. Both heads turned. Percy had a stoic but calm face donned whereas Zoe was just grinning like a flustered school girl.

"You're the Perseus Jackson of legend. A man that is said to be five millennia old and can fight Gods and the sons of Primordials yet you can easily get beaten up by your sword?" Reyna asked incredulously as she stood with her hands on her hips, faking an unimpressed look.

"In my defense, if she was in her sword form and somebody stabbed me with her I'd be killed off instantly and willed never to reform. In respect she is the most deadly woman in history." Percy grinned at his very rare victory at the hands of women.

"Hmpf." Zoe grunted in disapproval before running over to the big bed and jumping on it. Mid jump she glowed white and turned into the sword itself. There it lay on the bed. Looking for more innocent than anything else given the situation.

"Quite the… Strange relationship you two have." Reyna told him with a raised eyebrow. She tried to mask her face with calm but Percy was ancient and knew people better than they knew themselves.

"Should have seen us in Arkadia, THAT was weird." Percy muttered to himself quietly before looking at Reyna.

"Oh Reyna." Percy said with a laugh before he looked directly into her eyes, causing another wave of heat to brutally reveal her terrible abilities to resist a man who had such confidence. "You sound jealous, is that the case?" Percy asked, his voice made it sound like a direct challenge to her.

She saw her chance, honesty and loyalty went a long way with Percy, "Maybe. That depends on whether or not I'd be anything more than just a sister. I'll be leaving now." Reyna was confident at first but when she saw Percy's jaw open like a fish at how plain she had made it she felt so stupid that she couldn't bear to still be standing there. Her skin felt like it was crawling at her own failed attempt at subtlety.

"I guess we'll find out." She heard Percy's voice call out and there was something about it that just reassured her completely. She stopped halfway out of the door and gave him a true and genuine smiled before she left them both to the training that they were going to do.

It hadn't taken long before Percy and the sword-form Zoe were making their way to the training battlegrounds, that was after all the best place to make friends, or, rather, frenemies as Percy liked to call them.

A think pale blonde man in ill fitting armor strolled right up to Percy and really tried to get in his face. "Who are you again?" Octavian asked him in a bored tone as Percy walked over to the training grounds, trying his best to ignore the augur. The training grounds here were extensive, much better than Camp Half-Blood's singular arena, but that was kind of to be expected from a people like these Romans, they were a much higher rated militia in general, it only really came down to the strength of character of certain individuals that made any real difference when comparing the Greek and Roman Demigods.

"Excuse me," Octavian tapped Percy on the shoulder, fully getting his attention, "You must not have heard me the first time. Who exactly are you?" He asked, not really feeling all that confident once he'd taken in Percy's full frame.

"Son of Neptune. Why are you asking me, librarian?" Percy popped the insult in rapidly, scaring the robes off of Octavian.

"It is important for an augur to know everyone that comes into the legion, even the strays. Try not to drown any of us, it seems that your powers are less controllable than most others." Octavian seemed to have mustered all of his courage into a single rapidly building confrontation with Percy. He had a way with words but Percy was, Percy.

"What are you saying whelp? That Neptune is a weak God? Are you slating one of the big three?" Percy turned on him with fake fire playing in his eyes. A part of Hephaestus' blessing. Octavian recoiled from the intensity of Percy's stare. People had gathered round at this point, just waiting for the unimaginably powerful son of Neptune to eat him up and spit him out. Reyna had been nearby and came to see what the commotion was. She was the only one in the entire camp who knew who Percy truly was.

"N-no, I wasn't-"

"Let's make one thing clear boy. You may see my power as being uncontrollable, and it is a well known fact for children of Neptune that the unbridled rage of the seas flows within them. But I am the strongest son of the sea God to have ever lived, and my powers might one day even surpass my fathers own." Percy was almost raging at the assumption Octavian had made. The augur had unknowingly gotten Percy so angry that the ancient Demigod had turned into his godlike water form. His features were still predominant and strong but his power was rolling in waves, and not just literally.

Reyna seeing her opportunity to bring herself closer to the ancient Demigod took her chance. "Percy, you have to calm down!" She shouted to him confidently. People were whispering to each other, rumors already on the brink of forming.

Percy sighed once as he turned back into his regular form. "You're lucky your praetor is willing to rescue you. If I ever hear you bad mouth Neptune again. I will throw your soul into the pit myself. Maybe then that wretched Primordial's son will emerge." Percy started to ramble. He gave a meaningful look at Reyna before leaving the confrontation to go and find the training rooms.

When he finally got to the weight rooms that the Roman's had, he was severely unimpressed.

"Impressive right? Four hundred and fifty pounds. Only Frank can lift those on a deadlift." Dakota told Percy, putting an arm over his back as a friendly gesture.

"You're kidding right? Four hundred and fifty pounds is just… Babytown frolics." Percy laughed as he walked over to the deadlift bar and lifted it with one hand off the ground before he put both hands on the bar and managed to curl it.

"Oh my gods." Was all Dakota could say as he dropped the drink in his hands.

Reyna gave Octavian a stern glare and was about to leave when she heard yet another commotion coming from inside the city's gym facilities where Percy had been heading beforehand. "What the fuck!?" She heard Dakota shout, "He's put up the weight AGAIN!" Dakota's voice cut out once more. Weight? He was weightlifting. Now Reyna knew that if she didn't go and watch him exercise she would be betraying her womanhood, so reluctantly, and under the guise of making sure there were no problems, she made her way into the weight room.

There was a list of things that Reyna hadn't been expecting that day. Percy Jackson shirtless lifting all of the weights the gym had WITH Dakota and Frank each holding a side of the bar, actively trying to hold it down and increase the resistance.

"How ugh-" Reyna just then noticed the abs that looked carved out of marble shipped straight from the original temple of the Gods upon Olympus itself.

"Ahem, how much weight is on that bar without you two holding it?" Reyna asked. The blush on her face only seemed to excite the whispers of the onlookers. It was already obvious from the way that Reyna was the one to be able to calm Percy down when he went God mode on Octavian, but now her unrestraint at Percy shirtless was like gold dust for the rumors.

"One thousand one hundred pounds." Frank told her. He was sweating heavily. Percy had thick beads of sweat pouring down his face by now. The black blade hummed happily. Reyna felt a pang of jealously at the thought that Zoe had been with him for the past five thousand years of his life. Her next thoughts barreled down the path of what if it was her with Percy those past five thousand years? It quickly went into the back of her mind where she started to imagine having hot passionate sex with him for each and every night of those five thousand years and she was forced to ignore them as she was still surrounded by people, that didn't stop her face from starting to tint scarlet.

"Frank, you are fifth cohort with Dakota here yes?" Reyna asked, seeing a solution to their cohorts losing streak.

"Yes ma'am." Frank responded.

"OK, Dakota, Percy will be in your cohort form now on. I see him being able to balance things out greatly. As you ugh, as you were." Reyna told them. Percy looked at her briefly before catching her eye and winking. When she turned a more violent shade of red than Dakota's kool aid stained lips Percy could only laugh before leaving the bar in rest above his head.

"Good workout sesh guys. I'm going to go and take a bath. I'll be repaired by then." Percy told them before taking off on his own way.

When he'd cleaned up and finally made his way into the dining pavilion and sat down at a table that he mostly just assumed was belonging to his cohort, as he didn't rightly know where they actually were, he found himself already being questioned. "Hey Percy. I gotta ask, are the rumors true?" Whispered in a low voice when he joined his new cohort at the dining pavilion, which again, compared to Camp Half-Blood was like a bloody Hogwarts.

"I dunno, what are the rumors?" Percy asked them stoically. Not having a clue as to what they were as he'd only been there a day. If he had to put drachma on it though he'd probably assume it was something to do with Reyna.

"That you and Reyna are getting all chummy?" She asked again, sending a look over at Reyna who had surprisingly already been looking their way.

"Why don't you ask her that? I only just got here today. I've nearly had to kill Octavian because of his big mouth and I'm already physically the strongest and most powerful Demigod here. Yet I have no skill when it comes to women, so if there was something between us, I truly wouldn't know this early. So you should ask her instead of me." Percy responded, brushing off the questions.

The dining went as one might expect before the siege games were announced. Percy's admission into fifth cohort made many people shudder at the impending ass-kicking that was about to be upon them.

"If anyone gets over that wall first, I'll make sure you get the mural crown!" Gwen shouted in an effort to spur her troops but frankly everyone just wanted to see what Percy would do.

There was a few moments of silence before the games were to begin. "Ready to see what a tried and tested War Machine can do? We'll you're about to. I don't have the same training as you guys, so I think I'll do my own thing. I know you centurions wont like it but frankly, you're powerless to stop me." Percy grinned as the signal was given and he turned into his godly water form as he stormed the battlefield only getting larger as he went before finally a wave crushed the fort that the other cohorts were being held up in.

Percy formed himself back into the fort before continuing to mow down each and every brave Demigod to step to him. It was easy, too easy which either meant that these Demigods were incredibly soft or that he had gotten even more powerful than he'd thought.

The only notable exceptions left were Octavian and Reyna. Reyna had been ground side while Octavian was perched up in an eagle's nest, eagerly eyeing up an opportunity to sink an arrow into Percy's skull. He'd been firing them at speed this whole time but Percy had been casually dodging them like they were annoying flies in the air.

Reyna charged at Percy before he winked and jumped into the air, using his blessing from Zeus to power his way up to the eagle's nest. The fifth cohort were only half way across the battlefield when the heard the sounds of washed up fighting, literally.

Just as they got to the outer walls they heard the sickeningly loud impact of a fist on flesh before they saw Octavian's limp body fly from the third floor of the fortress right into a pool of water that had been left over from Percy's attack. There wasn't a conscious person left inside the fort except for Reyna who was looking stunned but determined to go down fighting. Percy casually dropped three stories before he thudded down in front of Reyna.

"Come Praetor, show me what you've got." Percy goaded her. She charged with a spear firstly which Percy sidestepped with his unrelenting speed and reflexes before he pushed his elbows into the shaft and forced it to fly into a wall on the far side of the fort. Reyna didn't miss a beat and instead pulled out a sword which she very nearly sliced a few hairs free of Percy's head before he jumped and kicked that out of her hands as well. She couldn't think fast enough however as Percy spun and got his body around hers and forced her into a disarm that sent her sprawling towards the floor. Before she thudded against the ground however, she felt strong arms embrace her only inches from the floor, and with even less space between their faces. Both were breathing heavily.

"You impress me as a Praetor. But you intrigue me even more as Reyna." He whispered to her. She hadn't realized it but she had actually subconsciously worked her hands up to behind his head. He noticed but didn't dare say anything for fear of ruining the moment.

"Hey, Percy!" They heard the unmistakable voice of Gwen call out from behind them which caused the two of them to break apart very quickly. Reyna scrambled to get her weapons as Percy looked towards the leader of his new cohort.

"Help us with these doors will ya?" She asked. She was either the only person to be able to scale the walls or just the first and the rest were massively slow.

"Shitty timing Gwen." Reyna heard him mutter as he pulled out his legendary Hephaestus made hand cannon. He clicked a small button on the side and when he pulled the trigger that he'd aimed at the top of the impossibly tall siege doors, the nitrous round had blown the thing into smithereens. Wood chips and millions of splinters filled the air as the charging army was seem closing in. He walked out to meet them all. "Guys, I think we've won the game." He told them loud enough for them to hear while Reyna stood at his side, the only remaining member of the opposition to still be conscious.

"Maybe we should have a re-run where Percy isn't allowed to dominate us?" A member of Reyna's cohort awoke rubbing their head, voicing their anti Percy opinion. It had taken longer than Percy expected but that was exactly what he'd expected from the get-go so this was a pretty good result when all was considered.

"All in favor?" Reyna asked. So far the only show of hands was the singular member of her cohort that had managed to regain consciousness.

"I expect that the rest of your troops will probably agree when they eventually rejoin the land of the living." Percy told her with a massive grin. "Perhaps we should call it a day and have another go tomorrow?" He suggested.

Reyna sighed and begrudgingly agreed. She made orders for almost all of her cohort to be taken towards the camp and assessed for concussion treatment and a few broken bones.

"Octavian is going to need treatment for a broken nose, by the way." He told her. Most of the fifth cohort was still hanging around waiting to see what either one of them was going to do next as the whole camp was buzzing with rumors that they were hitches after only a day.

"His nose looks fine, why will he need treatment?" She asked in confusion.

"Because in a seconds he's going to get up and say something really stupid." Percy answered her like it was the most obvious thing in the world. They were all really confused at what he was talking about but before anyone could offer an opinion on what he'd meant, Octavian had sprouted upwards and started to point fingers.

"Percy Jackson is a cheater! CHEATER! CHEA-" He'd gotten within arms reach which for Octavian was a real bad mistake as Percy had let his fist fly straight into the augur's nose resulting in a sickening crack. The augur's body went limp and he collapsed back to the floor.

"Told you he was going to need treatment for a broken nose." Percy shrugged at the looks Reyna was giving him. The black sword firmly on his back hummed in total agreement.

"Yeah I know, what a tool." Percy laughed as if in conversation with his own sword. Let's go and rest up, we've got a long day tomorrow." He said, mostly to his sword however to the other members of the fifth cohort surrounding them it sounded entirely like he'd just said that to Reyna.

They all looked at her expectantly, "What?" She demanded. "Dismissed." She ordered them when she realized they weren't about to leave her alone of their own free will. These younger kids loved to gossip far too much.

Much to all of their amusement she did in fact run to catch up to Percy.

"Yes I was serious about having a bath, I like having baths, I heal much faster that way, not that I particularly need to right now." He said without her even asking him anything.

"What?" She looked very confused.

"Sorry, what were you about to ask? I for some reason thought you were going to question me about my choice in baths, as weird as that actually is." He answered, letting that sentence roll around his tongue for a moment.

"I wasn't going to ask anything, it's just…" She thought back to how he just randomly spoke to Zoe in her blade form. "What IS the relationship between you two?" She couldn't bring herself to not probe deeper about it. She HAD to know the extent of what they were because it was clear that at some point in time they had been closer than friends, closer than they wanted anyone else to know.

Why would they hide that? Two immortals going through that much time together surely meant that they were perfect for each other? More so now than they might once have been. They knew each other perfectly. She wanted to know just how much she had to match up to.

"That is private." Percy swayed his head ever so slightly, "And you probably won't like the answer anyway, I suggest you not find out." Percy told her before disappearing right before her very eyes. She forgot the extent of how much actual power he had. For a few brief moments she forgot that he was the legendary Spartan, and instead he was just Percy the Greek Demigod, but the realization was slowly creeping back.

He was the Legendary Demigod, he really was matching the profile of the Last Spartan.

**A/N: This is your ONLY chance to request pairings so I suggest you all review sooner rather than later because once I decide it will most likely start to develop in the very next chapter.**


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4 – The Calm Before...**

**Ancient Greece 2936 B.C.E**

"How about..." Athena began. She put her hands on her hips as she thought about what the two of them might get up to in order to celebrate her invention of the written language. Well, her invention of the very old Greek language, but to her this was the greatest thing they'd ever seen.

"Why don't we break into everyone's hideaways to try and find something to help us figure out that sword of yours?" She asked, a wide grin on her face.

It was in that moment that Percy realized that as a matter of fact, they had been on two separate wavelengths, here he was thinking that he was going to be the first and probably only man to bed wisdom, and she just wanted to cause a bit of chaos in celebration.

He was fine with either, he'd just expected the former from the way she'd looked at him when she'd said 'trouble'. Maybe he was reading into it too much? No, probably not.

"What do you mean hideaways? Which, actually, yeah, where are we milady?" He asked, remembering that she was still a high Goddess that probably wouldn't take too kindly to Percy dropping the formalities.

"You may call me Athena, t'is my name after all." She told him, still with a smile on her face. So he was wrong about that too. "We're in MY hideaway. Shortly after you arrived we all just kind of expanded from the temple. We've since acquired our own places of solitude and sanctuary. We are in what I hope to help become the greatest learning capitol our world has ever seen. One day it will be more than a primitive settlement." Athena explained. He realized that they were in what he could only describe as a stone observatory, just without a huge megascope in the centre of the room, though what with it being Athena, she probably didn't need one and this was probably ACTUALLY an observatory.

"Yeah that makes sense, so we're in what will no doubt become a great city. What are the others up to then? Because as funny as it would be, I doubt Poseidon will take kindly to you somehow swimming to Atlantis just to… I don't even know what we'd achieve." Percy laughed at the notion of it as he found himself somewhere to sit. He reasoned that they were probably going to start brainstorming for quite a while.

"It's a shame Dionysus didn't give me a blessing, could really do with some wine right about now." Percy muttered to himself with a dry laugh.

"Who's Dionysus?" Athena asked without looking at him. She was pacing around the room, thinking about the sword and what it could be that made it so drawn to Perseus.

"Old friend of mine." He said without skipping a beat. He hadn't realized until she had said it but Dionysus was the only Olympian to have not been brought to the same time as him out of frame. Athena, Artemis and Apollo, probably Hermes though he wasn't too sure about that one, they were all brought back to the same time as him despite not being born for quite some time.

Athena snapped her fingers, making a neatly decorated clay jar appear at Percy's feet. "Hmm." He muttered, picking it up and helping himself to a generous amount of wine that went down far better than he had expected it to. It was strong, but also with deliciously fruity notes to it.

"So we'd probably have to get Hephaestus to analyse the sword to figure out what makes it so special." Athena decided at last. The sword on his back hummed in response.

"What does that mean?" The Goddess asked, hearing the blade vibrate against Percy's armour.

"What?" He asked, not paying any attention at first, "Oh, it's agreeing. Hephaestus was the one who forged this blade in the first place. Obviously not recently, but thousands and thousands of years ahead of now." Percy told her, going back to slugging the wine at impressive speeds.

"Maybe I should try to summon Clotho, she seemed into me, or she seemed into the thought of killing me, not too sure which one." Percy laughed slightly before having yet more wine.

"Perhaps you should slow down, you're rambling about one of the fates like you'd met them." Athena told him as she eyed the jug of wine, wondering how much was already gone.

"Yeah, that's because I did meet her, genius. She basically told me to behave myself or that she'll try to return me to my own time, but also that she had no idea how to do it." Percy laughed heartily before continuing, "Then I started flirting with her then my sword scalded me for it." The sword buzzed in aggravation at his words.

"Yeah, a little bit like that. You do seem to get uppity whenever I mention her." He said, pulling his sword from the scabbard and bringing it to his face. "Almost like you're jealous… Is this Luke? That would be just TYPICAL of the Gods to put you of all people in my sword. Please don't be Luke." Percy almost whispered as he glared at the sword.

He got an incredibly angry response as the sword heated up in a fraction of a second and tried to burn his hand. "OK, I'm sorry, but burning me won't work, you can thank Hephaestus for that." Percy laughed before holstering the sword once more, much to the dismayed humming it was giving off.

"It's incredible how closely tied you are to this sword and yet have no idea what's actually inside it." Athena muttered loud enough for the immortal to hear her.

He raised his brows at her ever so slightly, "I know what's inside it, some poor bastard's soul is inside this sword, I'm just not sure WHO it is, or specifically what they are. Could be a Titan, could be a Demigod, could even just be a poor schmuck of a mortal that Hephaestus swept up from the street… Oh Gods, please don't be that last one, that would be awful." Percy looked at his sword in a mixture of fear and disgust. A mortal's soul would no doubt have quickly gone insane with how much Percy had made them train just over the last three years alone.

"Perhaps we should seek another's council on this." Athena decided as she summoned someone else.

"Why? You're the wisdom Goddess, if you can't figure it out then I highly doubt anyone else can." Percy reasoned. He slowly lifted the jug before realizing that it was empty, "Hey, um, might be a bad time, I can see that you're busy trying to… Do something, but can I have a refill?" He asked hopefully.

Athena didn't open her eyes or even directly respond to him, she simply clicked her fingers and all of a sudden he could feel weight drawing back into the jug. A smile spread across his face as it did. So maybe hanging out with Athena wasn't going to be so bad, she could get to work on trying to unlock the secrets of his sword and he would just work on getting progressively tanked.

"Awesome." He grinned with glee.

A silver flash alerted his senses to something that he wasn't expecting, so he didn't know what to do other than to simply sit there and greet her, "Hey Lady Artemis… How's it going?" He asked, internally cringing as he saw just how badly that particular greeting had been received.

"Anyone else would have kneeled in my presence." She said, scrunching her nose.

"How much has he had to drink? I was led to believe that he is incredibly responsive to us Goddesses." Artemis asked, turning to Athena to get an answer.

"This is only my second jug. My apologies my lady, it's just that in my time we had become quite close friends, it's sometimes a bit of a struggle to readjust. I'll get it." Percy reassured her before getting up and giving her a sincere bow before returning to his prior seat. His sword seemed to take on a healthy glow from the moment that Artemis had arrived which Percy started to see.

"Oh?" He muttered quietly, "You like the silver Goddess?" He whispered, pulling his sword free once more so that he could properly look at it. "Isn't that interesting..."

"So you see, we just want another opinion on how we can find out what's inside the sword." Athena explained. She'd said more than that but Percy had been prefixed on conversing with his sword so he'd missed almost everything else he'd said.

"We've been over this," He said, butting into the conversation, "I KNOW what's inside it, there's a soul inside it, I just don't know who that soul belongs to or how to release them. They clearly weren't supposed to stay a sword forever, right?" He reasoned, glancing back down at the shining blade which seemed to be humming in agreement.

"Have you tried asking it?" Artemis asked, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. She held her hand out to see whether or not Percy would part with his blade. Begrudgingly he did, and as he handed her the blade it started to glow silver.

"Doesn't do that for me." Percy huffed, folding his arms in the closest thing to sulking that he would come to.

"Hello. Could you tell me how to release you? You seem pretty happy to be with me." Artemis remarked, seeing the growing look of irritation on Percy's face as she realized how much fun she could have with teasing him.

"_To release me..."_ Artemis began to phrase as she stared at the sword, almost as if in a trance. A moment went by before she frowned. Artemis spared a single second where she looked past the sword and right at Percy.

"What?" He asked, getting inpatient. It was bad enough that it seemed Artemis could directly talk to his sword when all along he had to go off of vibrations.

"Pierce thou heart, thine perfect bond will release." Artemis told him at last.

Percy was silent for a moment, staring right back at Artemis before he finally spoke, "Well that doesn't make any sense. We're not even on the same speaking terms that you are, we can't really have a perfect bond, plus, pierce me in the heart, what's that about?" He asked with a laugh. He looked back at Artemis with no time to react to anything. His world slowed to a halt as he watched her stick the tip of the sword into his chest, plunging it just deep enough to pierce his heart.

The metal of the sword was cold and he felt his every fibre of his being start to pull towards the centre of the sword as he was slowly being murdered by his own weapon.

"I'm sorry if this kills you." Artemis told him quietly. He guessed that was probably going to be the best form of an apology for stabbing him in the heart.

"Yeah, I will be too!" Percy sputtered some extremely bright golden ichor out of his mouth. It had been a while since he'd seen his own blood and the last time he had, it was definitely far more crimson that this absolute shade of bullion.

The sword began to glow so bright that he could no longer make out the shape of it. Artemis hastily stepped back to where Athena was watching with fascination. She did so hope that her sister hadn't just killed an immortal above immortals by accident on a whim. That would have been very bad.

"This hurts so much more than I expected!" Percy gasped as he slowly tried to remove the offending weapon from his chest. Inch by inch the sword came out until it was free and he was sat gasping for air. His usual tanned skin now a much paler shade.

"Got any more bright ideas!?" He blurted, looking at the stoic Huntress.

"No, that was it. I only did what the sword told me to do, here, I'll ask again." Artemis extended her hand to take the blade again.

Percy glared at her hand then at her, "Do NOT stab me again, I won't survive that a second time around." He told her, gently caressing the scar across his chest. No amount of godly blessings was going to heal this wound, this was a cavity that time itself was bound to struggle with.

"Apparently the sword has seen inside your heart and now you have a bond like none other, something to do with the fact that a part of your heart now resides within the sword itself, but to release it you need to not have regret in their death." Artemis explained. Percy took this in and sat with a confused expression as he absent mindedly caressed the open wound above his heart.

It hurt more than any other wound he'd managed to get, even worse than his dip in the Styx, but for the life of him he couldn't think of who might still be inside that sword. Regret for their death? Who's death did he have on his hands to regret?

"Seriously, if that's Kronos and I'm being punk'd then I'm going to be excessively upset seeing as you just stabbed me with a sword that could well be ironically made from his Gods damned scythe." Percy explained, finally standing and taking his sword back.

"You think it's possible the soul belongs to a Titan? I think I'd have felt that kind of presence." Artemis gave the sword back with a raised brow.

"Well, can you feel my presence?" Percy asked, putting the sword firmly back in it's sheath. With only an instant of feeling out the room he managed to locate a jar holding water instead of wine. With a flick of his wrist it came slowly streaming out across the room. The two Goddesses' backed up slightly and watched in silence as Percy worked the water across his chest. Ever so slowly the flesh began to knit itself together.

"Afraid to get wet?" He asked, not taking any time to look at them for an answer.

"Not afraid, we just know better." Athena told him. She stood with her arms folded, being the one of them to be more cautious of the water. They knew that any water that moved of it's own accord was always at Poseidon's will, and both of them knew that if he wanted to Poseidon could destroy them with the power he wielded.

Though the rules to that were rapidly changing since Percy arrived as now here he was, an incredibly powerful son of Poseidon who commanded more control than his father, not that the latter was aware of that fact.

"I'm not going to harm you, with water or without. It would be greatly appreciated if you could return that kindness and promise to never accidentally destroy my heart." Percy told them almost sarcastically as he finally had a smile on show. He had slightly longer canines that most others which meant that every now and then when he smiled it came across almost animalistically. His smile was strong, no longer a lopsided crooked smirk of a teenager but instead a smile that would likely bring Aphrodite to her knees. Wasn't doing much for the virgin Goddesses in his company though.

Before either one of them could respond, an arrow came whistling through the 'windows', which were holes in the wall, and would have struck Percy squarely in the back of the head had he not sensed it fast approaching. With lightning quick reflexes he managed to move and catch the arrow before it continued on it's path and slam into Artemis' chest.

It took a second but the Goddesses realized that Percy had caught an arrow. "Where did that come from?" Athena asked, now on high alert. She swiped her hand at the air in front of her, suddenly with a spear in hand.

"Obviously from the hole in the wall..." Percy told her with a rather skeptical expression as to how she hadn't understood that.

"Let's go and investigate who wants me dead. That was way too precise to be accidental and no mortal could even pull off a shot like that, not even convinced their bows would be good enough." Percy muttered as he led the way out of Athena's observatory and out into the street. There were mortals milling about, being a small community as he expected them to be.

He couldn't really see anything out of the ordinary which made tracking the arrow that much harder.

There was only the faintest indifference in the vibrations in the air that made him know that whoever shot at him was still close. His sword wasn't going to help him right now, what he needed was an extra three feet of reach. He pulled his spear off of his back and readied himself. He could feel something approaching but he didn't know where from, he could just sense it.

Closing his eyes Percy tried something new, he focused solely on the high concentrations of water next to them. He could feel the water in the mortal's bodies, he could even feel the two Goddesses but they were less water and more divinity so that was fairly out of the question.

The air was going to be his only option, a buzz here, an out of place difference there. Just as he was about to open his eyes he felt a rift in the air. Instinctively he spun on his heel, putting a hand around Athena's waist and pulling her body tightly against his own and thrusting his spear out at the space she'd been standing. There was a loud clash of metal against metal as a pair of swords locked the head of Percy's spear in place.

"I'll admit, I wasn't expecting this." Athena whispered so quietly that only Percy had heard her. Artemis was already pointing a knocked arrow at their would be assailant.

"And yet, not disappointed." The wisdom Goddess said a little louder as she looked towards the being who had nearly stabbed her in the back, yet she could already tell that Percy was the main target. He was only the most interesting immortal she'd ever met.

"Now is probably where you make your introduction and tell me why you're trying to kill me." Percy prompted, moving his spear and in turn the assailant's swords ever so slightly lower so that he could look into his would be assassin's eyes.

They were deep red, the colour of congealed blood and they seemed to be shifting slowly like an eternal promise of obliteration.

"You can call me whatever you like." He told them with a deep smooth voice, it was the kind of voice that could charmspeak with ease. "There is a Titan being kept in the deepest pits of Hell that was forced to send me back to whatever time this is just so that I could kill you." He answered with ease.

"OK then, asshole. So you were made to kill me, I can believe that. You were sent back in time just like I was, I can even believe that. But what I cannot believe is that you so foolishly actually decided to try it, now that I cannot believe, because you are nowhere near powerful enough to pull it off." Percy laughed before sliding his wrist to the side and forcing the spear across the assassin's neck, opening it up brutally with blood spattering everywhere.

He let Athena go before spinning and kicking the assassin with a heavy heel to the chest before firmly planting his spear through his heart. The man promptly let out a few filthy curses before laughing crudely and melting into a pool of blood that quickly seeped through the ground.

"So he's totally not dead." Percy muttered before picking his spear up and wiping a few bits of blood off of the blade. "He bleeds crimson, but there's no way he's mortal, he has to be an upper level of immortal like me." He continued to mutter. The black blade hummed in agreement from it's sheath on his hip.

He gently placed the spear where it belonged on his back. "Going to have to watch out for this loon. He might get lucky one day." Percy thought about whether or not he was likely to actually see him again before he gave up and turned to the Goddesses, "I'd say that was enough fun for one day Athena, would you be so kind as to return me to my house near Olympus?" He asked politely.

"I'm glad you didn't die." Artemis told him plainly before disappearing.

"Thanks." Percy replied, looking at the empty space where the silver Goddess has been standing only seconds previously.

"You should rest for a few days. Moving too quickly has opened your wound, perhaps you'd be safer on Olympus?" Athena put her question out there but Percy was adamant to go home. Time travelling assassin or not, he'd still be fine defending himself even with his wound.

"Proper rest away from excitement is probably the best thing, Olympus cannot help me." Percy batted her suggestion away with ease. Athena huffed slightly before she did as he asked and took him straight to his home before leaving the immortal in peace.

Percy walked through his front door, removing his shirt without paying any attention to his surroundings. He started to drink heartily from a jug of wine that wasn't there before, a last minute gift from Athena?

He didn't even stop for air as he continue to demolish the contents inside, it was only when he heard a purposeful cough that he stopped and opened a single eye to survey what was going on. Sitting on his makeshift sofa was none other than an impatient looking Moirai.

He finally pulled the jug away from his lips and cleared his throat, "Clotho, the absolutely hottest of the fates." He said, earning a fraction of a glare, "To what do I owe this pleasure? Is it pleasure?" He asked with a mischievous raised brow.

The black blade hummed indignantly to which Percy ignored, he wasn't going to listen to the sword if it was going to restrict his only possible outlook towards fun.

"How did you do it? You brought ANOTHER being through your time rift." She told him, standing and closing the distance aggressively.

"You just wanna jump right into this, not even a drink first?" He asked her with a grin, "And I didn't bring him. He came to try and kill me to which I responded by killing him first. He's not dead though which I guess you already knew otherwise you wouldn't be gracing me with your FINE presence." He told her before swigging at the jug once again.

"If you weren't responsible then who was?" She pressed, folding her arms.

"You know for the youngest of the fates you are definitely the most headstrong. Do the others let you lead them by choice or do you metaphorically overpower them and assume command anyway?" He asked, diverging from her questions mostly to see whether or not he was able to push her buttons so to speak.

"I come to you of my own will, Lachesis and Atropos have other matters and commitments to attend to that mean I am the voice of the Fates. Now answer my question." She demanded. Her eyes began to glow ever so slightly gold as did her already beaming long hair. She was starting to emanate raw power which meant that Percy had clearly succeeded in getting under her skin.

"You're too tense and you're looking into this too much so I'll simplify everything that surrounds ME so that you can understand really quickly." He told her before gently placing the jug down, he had every intention to return to that beautiful pithos of wine.

Percy stood straight and looked right into the eyes of the Fate in front of him, "I am here for a good reason, I am here to ensure that our world five thousand years from now isn't overrun by Gaea and Tartarus, now if you think that they were going to just let me roam about the past carefree then you're a fool, so yes, they have sent someone to kill me, and no you cannot send him back any more than you can me." He explained. All the while he'd been talking there was an air of power that crushed whatever Clotho was trying to produce. Percy hadn't even been trying, he was simply far stronger than her to the point that he was subconsciously domineering.

"So why don't you take the burden off your shoulders and relax for a day, or better yet, you could take your clothes off, that would be FAR more interesting for the both of us." Percy told her, giving her that same smirk that women were going to melt over.

Clotho stepped forwards, not afraid to reciprocate the confidence that Percy was seemingly limitless with. "You better be careful the weight of your head doesn't break your neck." She said, flicking him on the nose gently before disappearing from Percy's home.

The black blade hummed from the sheath on his hip. "Yeah, she wants me." Percy laughed to himself before picking the jug back up and helping himself to long chugs, "And I want a bit of her myself." He added afterwards which earned him another literal scalding attempt from the sword.

"You cannot judge me, you are a soul inside a sword, and on top of that you almost destroyed my entire being. AND you were way friendlier with Artemis than me which is, you know, basically treachery!" Percy blurted whilst feigning hurt as he held the blade up to his face.

"On top of that you actually spoke to her, you just hum at me and never give me any clues! Three years and the most vocal you get is when you're trying to cock block me, which is not cool." He huffed, throwing his sword onto the makeshift sofa before returning to the jug which he noticed was rapidly refilling as he started to progress through it.

"So what have we found out from today? Clotho is into me in what I can only suspect is going to turn into her hate banging me. Artemis has managed to stab me through the heart with a soul reaping blade which very nearly ended me, and to top it off Athena has gifted me a pithos of never ending wine, so what can we gather from this?" He asked himself much to the dismayed hums from his sword.

"That I'm probably going to bang my ex's mother."

**Ancient Greece 2931 B.C.E**

It had been a few years since Percy had seen or heard of Gaea's assassin but he had a building suspicion that he had finally reformed as the world was feeling darker these days. It had also been a similar amount of time since his last confrontation with the beautiful youngest sister of Fate, Clotho, who he was sure watched over him for a few days on end after a year or so passes.

Percy had so far refrained from bedding Athena which he had thought to be impossible for him at first due to how generous her gift of never ending wine had been, but as time went on he remembered that maybe it wasn't the best idea.

Then he remembered that he wasn't sure whether or not he greatly cared about such things and that he needed to try and enjoy himself when opportunities arose, to which the black blade was always ready to attempt to burn him when his more primal side surfaced.

"It feels like something is going to die today." Percy announced as he stood tall and stretched his limbs out. He was extremely sore from his rigorous training that he'd yet to let himself have a real break from. He saw no real point in stopping, his body was responding to the intensity nicely and at this point he had far surpassed the Gods of Olympus, a few of which were none too happy, not that they could do anything about it.

He still seldom trained with bow and arrow so there were still things that he lacked skill with but that category was severely limited as time went on.

The black blade hummed from his hip in agreement which was strange as it was usually against Percy's judgement for whenever he had a 'good day to die' kind of day.

"There's a shadow of doom falling over us today." He muttered, analyzing the dark skies overhead. Today was a dark day indeed, that gut feeling he had about Gaea's assassin was growing stronger and stronger but for all it was worth, he knew that this time around the assassin wasn't going to be alone, not after Percy dispatched him solidly the first time around.

He walked out of his house situated on the outskirts of Olympus, the grand mountain piercing the skyline in the distance. That was his destination; the home of the Gods, or at least the most prominent meeting point of the Gods. Zeus was crafting himself an ethereal realm not unlike Olympus itself, yet it would be a kingdom almost solely accepted by Zeus himself, some kind of Thunder Palace.

Atlantis was yet to become a thing so Poseidon for the most part was usually skulking around Olympus as well. The same went for most of the other Gods save for Ares who constantly tried to tend to the fledgling battles bordering between the tribes.

Athena had been in disguise in her settlement, developing the city for what it was and turning Attika into Athens. There was one Goddess that Percy hadn't seen nor heard from in the past few years, which he heavily suspected was down to her stabbing him in the heart.

"Let's go." He muttered once again before wrapping a cloak around him and walking towards the city instead of towards Olympus, he was going to find something to keep him entertained before going to see the Gods as time was starting to become tedious.

Halfway into his journey into the centre of Athens he started to get the feeling of a weight bearing down on him. The mountains started to grow higher and the valleys ran deeper.

"Perfect place for an ambush, wouldn't you say?" He asked casually, his voice echoing for a few seconds as he pushed on.

"I'd be inclined to agree!" A voice called out, shattering the peace that Percy had held for the past few hours. The voice was unmistakable, smooth and seductive. The man in question materialized from the shadows encompassing the wall of the valley, and promptly made his way towards Percy.

"What took you so long?" Percy asked with a slight smirk on show. He grabbed his spear from his back, much to the annoyance of the black blade that yearned to be used. The spear and the black blade were without doubt his favourite forms of combat.

"I was busy investing in some Titanic backup!" The assassin laughed heartily as two impending figures closed in behind Percy.

He turned to acknowledge them ever to slightly, "And you would be?"

"I am Moros, the Titan of Doom." The smaller much thinner one answered, walking forwards with his hands held out in the creepiest posture Percy had ever seen someone use for a fight.

"And the walking muscle?" He asked, looking at the much larger Titan that had done nothing but grin like a bloodlusting maniac.

"Atlas, the Titan that's going to overthrow Olympus and those pompous Gods!" He laughed heartily. Percy's eyes turned into a sharp glare. He had a special place of hatred in his heart for Atlast because he'd killed someone that Percy deeply cared about. The black blade emulated the emotion Percy was feeling as it too started to massively hum.

He knew that he couldn't use the black blade in this fight, it would mean reaping these Titans and unfortunately, the world needed them to go on.

"Tweedle dee and tweedle dumbass, got it. So you've come to die by my hand again, have you?" Percy asked, turned back towards Gaea's assassin, the one that Percy was actually having to concentrate on not losing track of.

"It won't be like that again, you ran me through with a cheap shot, and besides, that was only our first date, I gotta play hard to get, right?" He laughed, his voice as smooth as silk as it reached Percy's ears.

"I'd be happy if you just let me kill you instead of playing hard to get if I'm being honest. If I knew your name I might be more invested in your games." Percy announced casually as he stepped backwards to avoid the charging wall of muscle that had tried to trample him.

He hadn't even been paying attention but he was still aware enough to be able to toy around as Atlast tried desperately to strike out against him.

Percy ducked under a jab before drawing his spear from his back and cutting underneath Atlas' outstretched tricep before spinning on his heel and firmly planting his foot against the Titan's chest, sending him flying backwards.

"Pfft, Titan, more like giant tit." he muttered with a glare as he watched gargantuan body roll across the ground.

"As for you-" He dodged the hand that crept across like shadows, holding out the tip of his sword to scratch along Moros' fingers, letting him feel the power of his soul destroying sword. "If you don't fuck off I WILL kill you." He ordered, staring him down with a smouldering gaze.

"Getting cut by a sword like Kronos' scythe isn't worth any grudge, you're on your own, assassin." Moros promptly melted into the shadows of the canyon walls, his presence fading along with him.

"That makes two idiots." Percy muttered, sparing his glance back to the would be assassin who was stood from a rocky outcrop watching with his arms folded. He seemed to be enjoying watching Percy beat up his hired help before coming down and dirtying his hands.

"I have to say that our first meeting was rather painful, but that's not the reason I hired these two Titans, I thought you'd enjoy a small warm up before we resume our conflict." The assassin told Percy is his suave voice.

The black blade hummed casually, "Yeah he does have a nice voice." He admitted quietly in response, never breaking eye contact with the would be assassin.

"As fun as this is, I need some more context, if only to make this more dignified. Firstly, thank you for the gift, it was unnecessary though I do appreciate the chance to beat up Atlas, he's a prick." Percy told him with a slight smile.

The assassin shrugged with a well natured smile. He was clearly right about his choices.

"Secondly, I really need a name for you because I'm going to get bored calling you assassin." Percy continued quickly, never taking his eyes away from the far stronger enemy in front of him.

"You COULD call me your death if it makes things easier." He responded with a slight grin as he slowly advanced, closing the distance between them with each passing moment. Percy could already feel that this assassin was leagues stronger than he had been when Percy killed him a few years ago, but then again, so was he.

"OK, you're going to be difficult about this, that's fine. I'm going to finish my warmup, do you mind?" Percy asked, sheathing his black blade.

"By all means, I brought them to you for that exact reason." The assassin gestured with a smile on his face, placing his hands behind his back and staying where he was instead of advancing.

Percy was powerful enough that even someone like his out of time assassin would not be able to successfully attack him while he was focused on beating up Atlas who by this point had finally gotten back onto his knees.

"Thank you. I should probably have had years of therapy after you brutally murdered someone that I cared a lot about." Percy muttered under his breath as he started to walk towards the Titan that was now rearing back to throw a punch right at Percy.

The air around them started to heat up, waves of pressure rolling around them. "I would have given anything to have been the one who died that day instead, but fate wasn't so kind, and my therapy became ignored when I then went on to fight multiple dickhead Titans in a war over Olympus." Percy continued, not bothering with preparing any kind of guard against Atlas' attack, he wanted the Titan of strength to understand exactly how outclassed he was, and in that moment he would instill a level of fear previously unknown to the world.

"You took so much from me on that day, now it's my turn to show you that pain, everything that I went through in those years that followed you're about to experience in one short and extremely intense time." Percy's eyes were barely visible under the overwhelming darkness that had enshrouded him.

"You're a freak!" Atlas bellowed, unleashing the punch he'd been winding. The fist landed square in Percy's face. The ground shook with the sheer strength the Titan had placed behind his fist but the immortals didn't move. Percy hadn't moved an inch from Atlas' attack.

Percy effortlessly caught Atlas' hand and twisted it so hard that the Titan flipped horizontally and smashed into the ground knees first. "I suppose as a Titan such as yourself you've never really known what true tremendous pain feels like." Percy told him, his voice probably not heard over Atlas' screams and he started to slowly crush the fist inside his own vice like grip.

Sure enough Atlas' blood started to come seeping through the space between Percy's fist as he continued to destroy the Titan's hand completely, even so much as turning the bone to dust and blood within his grip.

Percy looked from behind darkened eyes as Atlas tried to plea desperately for his life. "I'm not going to kill you Atlas, I just want you to know that the next time I see you, when I see you in my own time, I'm going to find you and I'm going to show you how much my pain, my anger, and my hurt has grown from what it is now. I am going to finally avenge her." He said, finally releasing him before smacking him directly in the face, rendering the Titan utterly unconscious.

"OK, where were we?" Percy asked, turning back to his would be assassin.

"Would you like a few minutes? That seemed awfully personal for a Titan I hired a few hours ago." He said, still looking on at Percy with a genuine smile on show.

"It was personal, from my time. I think I'm going to call you Hamster." Percy announced after a moment of consideration.

"Hmm." The assassin frowned somewhat, "If you must but I don't think it's very fitting. What will your Gods think if you get killed by someone called Hamster?" He replied, looking at Percy.

"You should really have thought about this before beginning our fight." Percy shrugged, not really caring much for what the assassin wanted.

"Well, if our fight has begun, then I'd better level the playing field." He said, producing a small glass orb from behind him. It was writhing in deep red energy and reeked of malice.

Percy drew the black blade that immediately started humming violently, "Yeah, I didn't really need you to tell me that it's bad news, I have eyes." He replied quietly, not daring to take his eyes off of the assassin.

Before he could react to anything, the orb was thrown against the ground, shattering into a thousand pieces as the whole world came to a halt. There were a few seconds where an explosion had stopped mid way before everything had come crashing back to reality and both of them were pulled right into the centre of what Percy could only assume was some sort of black hole straight from Tartarus.

The whole of reality had turned into a vast vortex of swirling crimson as they both started to freefall through infinity. There were gold strands of what looked like wisps of energy flowing around them as they fell.

"What is the fuck did you do!?" Percy demanded, jabbing the assassin in the face when he'd glided too close.

"It was a time bomb, crafted by Kronos and Tartarus together. It was never going to be a promise of how effective it was going to be against someone like you but the aim was to bring you as close to the current time as possible to minimise the time you could get stronger. So it was a gamble, shall we see what our winnings are?" The assassin grinned as he pulled a dark sword out of thin air and started to swipe towards Percy.

The immortal among immortals was able to elegantly dodge the strikes despite being in a freefall so vicious that there was little to no sense of gravity among them.

"This has made is very easy to dislike you. Time to die Mister Clean." Percy announced, vaulting his body in an arc over another swipe and landing both of his heels into the assassins face causing him to crash right into the side of their time tunnel and smash right through it, disappearing into the vast distance.

It was only a few more seconds before the world flashed bright and Percy was rocketing back along solid ground at about a thousand miles and hour.

He took a few long breaths to try and get some air back into his lungs. It felt like he'd been drop kicked by Ares. He picked up his spear that had fallen off his back and walked over to where his black blade had been firmly embedded into the ground. "This better not turn into a whole sword in the stone bullshit." He muttered to himself as he went to prized his weapon free from the rock.

The moment that his hand touched the tang of the blade that he'd come to know and love for years, it seared and burned, his vision being invaded by light so intense that even he had to shield his eyes away from the sun-like glare.

When it faded he managed to get his vision back to see that his hand was firmly holding the side of Zoe Nightshade's head, much to her incredible dismay.

"What…" He said in complete deadpan, looking right into her deep obsidian eyes.

"Oh, if it isn't my saviour." She responded with a tired smile, it must have taken a lot of energy being a sword. There was silence between them.

"...What?" He repeated, his questioning becoming slightly more urgent than before.

"It took you long enough to unlock me." She pouted. She let her eyes dart towards the hand on her head that he still hasn't removed. She didn't exactly blame him, she'd have been in shock as well given the situation.

Realisation had slowly sunk in as tears silently streamed down Percy's cheeks and his heart started pounding so hard that Zoe could see it from where she was kneeling on the floor.

Without another moment's hesitation Percy had pulled her into a hug as they hit the floor. He held her tightly, unwilling to let her go. "Percy, this doesn't feel quite appropriate given our friendship now does it?" She asked through breaths as Percy was hugging her so tightly.

"I watched you die! I blamed myself for your death for years, for the last twelve years I have mourned for you." He told her, not letting go.

"And I never blamed you." She assured him, finally loosening his grasp enough to allow them to both get up.

"How… How have I only just gotten you out of that sword after all this time? I've held you every day for the past decade near enough." He asked in confusion, his eyes looking all over her in frantic worry. He never once hallucinated or ever thought that he was going crazy but the visage of Zoe Nightshade was the one thing that he never thought he'd ever see again, and that made him doubt himself.

"I'm guessing that your very one sided fight with my father finally pushed you over the point where you stopped blaming yourself for my death so much, or at least enough to break the seal on the sword." She explained as they both finally stood.

"I can't believe that you're here, and that you're my sword. This is all SO messed up." He sighed, rubbing his temples at the oncoming headache. "Oh Gods you saw me flirting with Athena, and the fate, and whoever else I might possibly have done that to." He said with eyes wide like a deer caught in headlights.

"Percy, relax. I was approached personally to come return from my place of resting to come with you on your horrible journey. A mission like this changes people and it will change me, Hades, it already has. I've finally shed my old way of speaking." She sighed, knowing that their journey together had only really just begun.

"I am extremely tired though Percy, so I think I'm just going to close my eyes for a minute or two." She said. She took his hand in her and that same light erupted around the two of them before he was once again stood there holding a beautiful gleaming black blade in his hands.

"I swear I'm going to personally fucking make it up to all of you Gods that were involved with bringing her back." Percy whispered quietly as he looked at the blade.

"I guess I'll go home then. I need a drink." He muttered. Taking a look around, he noted that he was at least in the same place as before, nothing had changed so he couldn't have been pulled THAT far out of time, right?

Deciding that the only thing he could really do was to go home and rest due to that time warp making him feel like his insides were churning.

It had been a few hours before he got back to his house which was definitely looking worse for wear, but if there hadn't been anyone there for however long then it definitely had the capacity to be run down to this point.

Without a second thought he put the black blade down and stripped his clothes off, grabbing the pithos he'd been gifted by Athena which had some extremely thick layers for dust on it. He filled his lungs with air before clearing most of the dust in a single forced breath before taking a deep drink from the never-ending winery in his hands.

He had been drinking solidly for more than a few seconds before he heard a forced cough that caught his attention.

Opening a single eye and looking out in confusion and slight worry he saw the voluptuous for of Clotho standing with her arms crossed, looking him up and down quite shamelessly.

"We need to stop meeting like this." Percy muttered.

"Like what?" She asked, finally meeting his eyes.

"Where one or both of us still have clothes on." He replied, grinning at last, very much enjoying the reaction he'd gotten from her.

"Where have you been? A lot of us in the immortal world felt… I don't know quite what it was but after you've been gone for so long we never would have assumed that you were at the centre of it, not until I felt your presence now." She told him.

"This is gonna sound stupid, but I swear on the Styx that what I say next is absolutely true. I went to go into the city to the East and got in a fight with that assassin who is a sore loser and threw a time bomb at me, a few hours later and here I am. How long have I been gone then?" He asked, seemingly nonchalant about all of that. Thunder rumbled overhead in the distance to which Clotho frowned heavily.

There was so much wrong with all of what he'd said but apparently it was the truth.

"Since the last time I felt your presence until this very moment it's been almost exactly one thousand two hundred and fifty years." She told him, letting her eyes wander over his naked body whenever she thought he wouldn't notice.

"That's not great." He replied, "That makes it… One six eight six." He muttered under his breath, mentally noting what year it was. Clotho was about to open her mouth before he cut her off.

"So, wanna make up for lost time?" He asked, turning his body fully towards her, taking yet another massive glug of his wine. Gods he loved Athena for this pithos. It was the gift that literally kept on giving.

"And how exactly do you propose to make up for that much lost time?" She asked, finally biting and going along with him.

"After all the shit I've been through I can guarantee you anywhere between fifteen to a thousand orgasms.

"Does your confidence and ego know no bounds?" She asked, finally sporting a smile on her lips.

"Why should they? You CAN see me right now, right?" Clotho's response wasn't verbal, instead her clothes started to disappear and before long the night was upon them.

**Ancient Greece 1682 B.C.E**

Percy was rousing from a deep sleep, his awakening sped up by the sudden weight of pressure filling the small house as Zoe had entered the room, staring at him with folded arms. Every now and then she would find a new and painful way of waking him up, something that she did after she'd recovered from being forced back into sword for right after they had met each other again only to walk in on Percy and one of the fates in the most unimaginable position that she could possibly have been subjected to seeing.

It was only made that much worse when she came to find out that it had been happening for at least a few weeks before she'd managed to gather enough strength to bring herself back to her proper form.

"Zoe?" Percy asked, shielding his eyes from the light that was peering through the open door.

"This dusty old book appeared in the middle of the floor. Is it the same one from before with all the dates in it?" She asked, throwing it at him.

He took a few moments to adjust as he stared at the pages, "Yeah, it is. It just appeared out of nowhere?" He asked, raising a single brow in confusion.

"I guess this is probably why." He said, turning the book so that she could see the writing that was in bright red instead of the black on the other pages.

'_Titonamacy'_

"This is definitely not good, but surely you're wanted to participate or else you wouldn't have been given the book. Do you think we're strong enough to fight?" She started to look worried, she'd taken up the mantle of making sure that he didn't quite go off the rails. She knew what he was feeling almost all of the time after she'd been used as a weapon to impale him through the heart.

In order to stop him from being destroyed at his core, she gave up a part of her own heart to be destroyed alongside his own, it meant that they'd both survived and become stronger with a bond made that could never be broken.

She didn't know at the time exactly how much it was going to cause her to change but as time went on she was starting to figure things out, especially how much he really meant to her.

For thousands of years she had spent her life in service to the Goddess Artemis, but now she was spending even more time by his side, completely willingly. Her views on the world were slowly turning but her views on him were still the same as ever, but it was never a bad thing for them.

"I fought off Titans in the battle for Olympus when I was a whole lot more mortal than I am now. Even if I had to fight some lower level Primordials I suspect that I'd probably be able to hold my own against them. That assassin thought is no doubt going to show up and be an incredible pain in the ass." Percy huffed, annoyed that he'd screwed up his chance to hurt his assailant.

"You should probably give him a name if you're both going to continue to go at it." Zoe suggested, sitting on a makeshift stool.

"I guess I'll have to, the problem is that he's just such a flighty bastard." Percy huffed again, finally getting up. Clothes formed around his body with perfect timing as his coverings fell to the ground. It helped Zoe's level of embarrassment from peaking, not that it was now something that she hadn't seen before.

"I need to go to Olympus, I've just realized that they probably don't know that we're back, it's been a couple of years now as well, they probably won't like that. Guess I'll tell them that we only just got here." He muttered casually before picking up his spear from the corner of the room and placing it firmly behind his shoulders.

"Yeah, it'll work as long as they don't ask your pet moira." Zoe told him, glaring at him through narrowed eyes.

"Must we go through this every time? That's my confused grieving process." Percy replied, taking the lead with leaving the house. He knew all too well which direction Olympus was.

Mostly because his house was built at the base of the mountain itself.

"You were hate banging each other for weeks on end, and by the sounds of it there were no signs of stopping." Zoe said in pure disgust at her partners actions.

"Like I said; confused grieving. Now I REALLY don't want to keep arguing with you over this, I've got too much to get done before joining a war with the Titans, for one thing I've got a seriously bad feeling about what this assassin's next move is going to be." Percy noted, taking his spear from his back and mindlessly swinging it around his hand and arm like he'd done a thousand times. Zoe was stood far enough away that there was zero threat of being accidentally swiped.

"What do you mean?" She asked quizzically.

"At first it was just an assassination attempt, a pretty good one in all fairness, but then it was a fist fight with some Titans and an actual time bomb that threw us over a thousand years forwards, what's next? It's no doubt going to be something much worse." Percy reasoned bleakly.

"My ears are burning, might that be your fault?" They heard an extremely smooth voice call out to them from the rocks ahead.

"I need to put a bell on you or something." Percy muttered, holding his hand out for Zoe to take and turn back into the black blade. He was determined to make sure that she pierced his heart once and for all.

"That's an interesting party trick." He whispered quietly before speaking up again, "You can be so hostile sometimes." He tutted, "Oh and so that you know, I think I've taken to calling myself Crowley. It seemed rather fitting considering that I'm about to subject you to literal Hell, and, well, I thought that it was fitting." He laughed casually.

"Alistair, Mister, is there a prefix or just Crowley? Either way, how exactly are you planning on putting me through hell? Last time we met I drop kicked you through what I can only assume is the raw threads of time." Percy grinned slightly like a juvenile at the memory.

"Like this." He smiled before disappearing in a cloud of dark vapors and seeping into the ground, a deep rumbling echoed all along the valley at the base of Olympus before the ground itself split open far faster than it should have been physically possible before Percy had fallen through the rupture in the rocks and was promptly swallowed whole.

He'd been given a one way ticket to Tartarus.


	5. Let's talk

Yo, it's been a little while hasn't it?

I suppose we haven't spoken that much, not about real stuff, so let's have that talk.

As a lot of you know, I was and always have been an aspiring writer, using this platform to refine my skills in each aspect that I could, a lot of which acted as a kind of therapy for myself, always giving me a place to turn in order to find some sense of solace in providing all of you with something in which you could escape from reality, much like I was doing.

For the past couple of years I'd been working on my own project, my own novel that I'd wanted to continue to push myself to get right. Eventually I found motivation to return to that project during the lockdown that we all experienced in some way or another, and I eventually got it right. I sent my manuscript to a publishing house and they offered me a full contract which will go on to produce the book and distribute it worldwide.

With this being the case, I'm now looking at my options, I'm going to be focusing on developing myself in my own world and universe that I've created. This was also the reason that my name changed on this website as my pen name was always going to be what you knew me as.

There are pieces in my contract that state a conflict of interest due to a mixture of copyrighted material, and seeing as I have one of my trademarked characters appearing in some way in most of my stories, there was and always will be that grey area as my own material is only in the primary stages of production, which unfortunately means that all traces of this account will soon have to disappear.

Worry not!

I will slowly be moving this content over to the side account that I had started, under the name Metal Pen, however I do not want to give false hope or indication that I can keep the promise to continue and finish any or all of my stories, so with that being the case, I will offer someone or someones the chance to adopt my stories if they feel that they are up to the challenge of taking one of them on and doing that story justice.

I can send that person the complete copy of the story so far and even tell them what I had planned for the rest, but that will then be up to that person to do what they wish of it.

I wanted to thank all of you for the support you've shown me over the past however many years it's been since I started writing, you guys are the best.

I'll always still be here, reading and writing from the shadows, always willing to chat over the DMs.

As one final note, before I begun my endeavor to recreate my project, I did end up re-writing The Hunter and the Guardian, the first PJO story I ever penned, and I'm going to be uploading the 90K+ content over on Metal Pen, but as with the others, this was not yet finished, so this too is now up for adoption.

Much love,

D. Socrates.


End file.
